Unbounded

Fear, greed, and success can be powerful motivators. But love is by far more influential.

I met an amazing young woman yesterday, someone I will simply call M (not the initial of her real name). Sitting in the passenger seat of a large vehicle, M had just received her first dose of the COVID vaccine at a mass public vaccination event in Phoenix. Before I approached the van, a colleague shared with me that M lived with a developmental disability and had been hospitalized three months ago with a serious COVID illness. Consequently, after M and her mom told me that she was feeling ok, I congratulated M for getting better from COVID and for bravely coming with her mom to receive the first dose of the vaccine.

“You were in the intensive care unit, weren’t you?” I asked.

“Yes,” M replied. “My dad was there too. Except he died.”

My heart ached. My instinct registered the momentous importance of the vaccine, both for M and for her mother. My eyes clouded with emotion.

A few words tumbled through my mask. “I bet your dad is proud of you right now.”

M smiled. Then we talked.

The temperature of the afternoon, the fatigue I had previously felt, the concern that I might wilt like a desiccated flower under the heat of the sun and tarmac and line of automobile engines all evaporated without effort. I was unexpectedly standing within one of life’s majestic and humbling moments, a timeless blink of existence when the world is no longer present, when individuality blends with universality, when breath, truth, and all the rich aspects of being resonate like the extended notes of a harmonious chord reverberating in an ancient cathedral. This experience, however, had no walls or roof. There was no container capable of defining or holding it. It was, quite simply, boundless.

Dare I say that I felt enwrapped in beauty? I have no intention of minimizing M and her mother’s loss; the pain it has brought their family was all too evident in their eyes, in the soft sadness of the air, in the spaces among that air, our words, and the bonds enabling hydrogen and oxygen to form the tears that swelled within me. Yet the love they felt for the father and husband who had been lost to a virus was as palpable as a gentle embrace from my own deceased parents. I was deeply grateful for M and her mother’s willingness to share that love with me. I felt a surge of strength that perhaps is best described as inspiration.

“Your dad is with you right now,” I heard myself say. “He wants you to know how much he loves you.”

I have no defense for the presumptuous nature of my remark. After all, I was only a clinician at a large community vaccine event. My job was to observe people briefly for possible reactions to the vaccine, to monitor and help reassure most that what they were feeling was not a serious problem, to identify the rare reactions that might occur, and to share information and try to answer questions. But I am a father. And a husband. If offered the opportunity, I would willingly and unflinchingly offer my own life should such an overture save the life of own daughters, my own wife, or the life of someone I love. Had M’s father made a similar offering when he and M were simultaneously in the intensive care unit? Would the Creator and the prime forces of life ever accept such an offering? It is impossible to know for certain. Yet given the story of the Easter and the Paschal sacrifice, I must believe that, at least sometimes, She/He/They would. Leaning against the driver’s door of M’s car, I had no doubt that They did.

Our time inside these bodies is precious. It passes quickly. None of us know what the hours may bring and when the moments of transcendence may hold us. Yesterday I was blessed with the beauty of M and her family. Today I am inspired by the majestic memory of spiritual sacrifice and rebirth. Tomorrow, if granted, is further opportunity to grow amidst the pathos, joy, and baffling sublimity of this thing we call a human life. Within our lifetime, there is the marvel of love. Within that love, there is always hope.

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