The Blink of an Eye

         We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives 
         against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. 
         There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer 
         so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?   ~   Chaim Potok

Just how quick is the blink of an eye?  About 300 milliseconds or 1/3 of a second.  And this is the window of time in which a conversation with Myrtle can go from having some meaning to no meaning at all - the blink of an eye.

She can observe the rhododendron petals lost to yesterday's heavy rainfall and mention the chipmunk stealing the birdseed which was scattered to the ground by the oversized bluejay feeding sloppily just minutes before.  In this same sentence, she wonders aloud if her (long dead) father is selling his house and why her (long dead) brothers haven't visited.   Remarkable powers of observation coupled with anachronistic impossibilities.  In the same sentence.

When I listen to Myrtle my mind gets benumbed. The sheer unworkable nature of the content in her speech and the hairpin turns from sensibility to absurdity - these overwhelm me.   My husband and four kids think that I have superpowers when it comes to tuning out annoying chatter.   They are unanimous in this belief, and maybe it is true.  But it is not so with Myrtle.  It is impossible for me to hear her speak, without listening; although I try, I cannot filter out the irrational.   And the irrational fatigues me.

A moment of calm after the storm

       

Yes, it has been a hard, hard week.

She had four consecutive days of mere napping - no real sleep.  She spat out her medications. She spat out the food in which I hid the medications.  She yelled for hours throughout the night for no discernible reason.  It was as if she decided to tear at the world with all her might for as long as she could…. which turned out to be four days.  (This did not feel like the blink of an eye.)  Yesterday, day five of her protest, she decided to rest and she slept much of the day and night.

                                                        

“…. a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.”  ~  Chaim Potok

Well, a lot can happen in the blink of an eye.  A life can begin or end in that instant. So what about that little span between the start and finish?   It is everything to us, it is right now, and it only lasts after we are gone if it held meaning.  Myrtle is still filling the little span.  Her milliseconds do not follow any order, now.  So what.  Nor do they have pace.  Big deal.  She is a special kind of time traveler, that’s all.   I like this perspective.

She floats around the milliseconds, living fluidly in the past and the present.  Occasionally, she seeks to fill the tiny span furiously, as though she just remembered that meaning is not automatically given to life.  We must work at it.  She is still adding meaning to her milliseconds.  That's all.

She is recuperating now from the frenzy of this week.  She has earned this temporary rest and she will be worthy and ready for her final rest when God steps in. She has done so many things well.  She has done so many things right. She packed meaning into all of the nooks and crannies of her life and that is the point.  This is a thing I cling to with my mind, while my heart clings to the cross.  While my heart clings to the cross.

It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here.  ~  Chaim Potok