On healing {Part Two} by Guest Author: Hugh Cheek
I can remember one of the first moments in life I felt unsafe. As an 8-year-old boy, I was climbing a beautiful, tall magnolia in my friend’s grandmother’s backyard. About fifteen to twenty feet into my joyful boyhood conquering, sweet magnolia let go of her limb beneath my feet. I remember hitting several other of her branches as she brought me to a sudden stop at her roots. Immediately standing up, I knew something was not right with my wrist. I felt numb, scared.
A new sensation of fear and loneliness came over me. There was no parent to run to or place of comfort. It was not obviously deformed, but if you have ever broken something, you just know it’s broke. One minute you’re a child at play and free, the next minute you’re wounded and alone. A lesson I now only look back on to realize, that same boy still longs to play, but has a deeper wound. One you can’t autograph or club anyone with. A wound no one wants.
On April 24th, 2013, my wife, Morgan, and I were graced with the beautiful gift of twin girls. Gorgeous like their mother with beaming smiles. Serious, at times, like their father. Ally or “Algae” was feisty and full of strength like Morgan, Bailey Grace or “B Jop,” was reserved and relaxed like her daddy (most of the time). These two beauties rode two thrones. One of hot pink, and the other of royal purple. To attempt now to write more about these two would be a cheap offering as this post is less about their life and more about the gaping void without them. There are not enough words on these pages to describe their angelic, pure vibrance.
On July 13th, 2019 and December 16th, 2020, they both respectively returned to the dust from which they came. Worse than a cruel branch snapping beneath your feet, closer to castration and a heart removal. You shouldn’t survive that, but you’re left to. There is something about the four-month point after trauma/death for me. On both occasions, I melted into a shell of myself. Constant nausea, abdominal pain, dizzy, downright mentally unstable. I found myself figuratively dragging myself between patient rooms, feeling like I was pulling myself through boggy soil and manure. Not suicidal, by Grace alone, but wondering if I would be able to hang on.
What happens when the irrational takes over the rational? When down is up and up is nowhere in sight. What do you do when you are very much alive, but dying? Others see you standing, but the internal wound is gushing, crushing. You white knuckle the steering wheel going 75 and scream as loud as you can to see if anyone passing can hear you. What the hell do you do when all is done?
a PLACE of healing
Some call it river therapy, some go for escape. I just call it a PLACE. A place to be present, a place to feel grounded and connected again. We are all drawn to the water. I find it interesting that patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder are often very attracted to water. We have a lot to learn from those with “disabilities” about each of our true “abilities.” Something within our very core longs to sit and gaze at the rushing water and crashing waves. A baptism of balm for worn out and thirsty souls.
“And I heard a sound FROM HEAVEN like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps.” Revelation 14:2.
Is it a stretch for the music of heaven to be like the house of healing in Minas Tirith from Tolkien’s tales? A place for wounded soldiers to be tended to. Tended to by something larger than ourselves, but for ourselves. The water and fly fishing have been something of the sorts for me.
I used to go to the river, frantically looking at my watch to see how much time I had left. Trying to exhaustion to catch, to fill my soul with something. In the Spring of 2019, standing in the shoals of the Coosa River, something changed. I realized that I was not there to take or achieve anything, but simply to receive. I had become so focused on efficiency, that I missed the intimacy. A call to come and rest. Receive creation as what it is. A surprising gift that I enjoy more when I have less expectation.
Or maybe now, I have expectation of receiving instead of my own twisted version of what it should look like or be like. I still have moments when I am so hyper focused on the hunt for a fish, that I miss the kingfisher, fly catcher, moon flower of grace waiting for me there. When I can step back and look, I find peace. When I can remember to receive, I can be filled with more than I can take in. An abundance of sorts. A feeding frenzy for the soul. I picture myself in bed in that “house of healing” there, with Jesus and Strider gently dabbing my wounds.
I apologize if any of this is confusing to this point, but my hope is that you see a window into a heart of a man, who is hurting but healing. Who is struggling, but not without hope. The following are a series of events and writings (poetry?) over the last 6 months, that illustrate what I am speaking of above. A few places where I have found presence and rest. I hope it somehow encourages you.
“Nothing is given that will not be taken, nothing is taken that was not first given.”
A few words of final advice to my co-sufferer. “Don’t sweat the small stuff” is horse shit. Worry less about the big stuff, enjoy more of the small stuff for what they really are. Moments, glimpses into peace, beauty, rest. Efficiency is the enemy of intimacy. Take time to heal, be patient with yourself. Show up with less expectation and receive what is already there for you. RECEIVE what is given. Rest in the receiving. Take time to be present in your recreation. Be distracted less and present more. Read good books and listen.
Step off the battlefield and allow someone else to look at your wound beneath the bandage. Reveal these to someone else who has suffered much and been trained (either professionally or through life seasoning) to be a SAFE listener. Take risks and love even with the facts suggest otherwise.
