GOD'S GREATEST CRUELTY?

GOD’S GREATEST CRUELTY?

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© February 27, 2009

REFERENCE: The writer is responding to my piece, MY FAVORITE UNCLE. He is a friend of my generation, an athlete and scholar of distinction, who went on to do wonderful things in servant leadership. What he expresses here is consistent with him as a person. His father was vice principal of my high school when I was a boy. The reference to him in this piece is his father overhearing a conversation I had with another person in which I was hardly charitable. He put me in my place not knowing that he also opened my eyes.
JRF

A FRIEND WRITES:

Jim

Thank you for sharing the article about your uncle. It touched me in many ways as I have two very good friends who are approaching the "far side" of Alzheimer's. I see the changes week by week, but all I can do is spend some time with them and try to help their families.

P

DR. FISHER RESPONDS

Dear P,

I sometimes wonder if Alzheimer’s disease is not God’s greatest cruelty: to give us this fine mind and to take it away from us before God takes our body.

Every day of my life I thank God for the mind He gave me for being conscious of the act of writing these words, appreciating the act of sharing them with you, and being moved by your kindness to your friends, knowing the fact and the act of knowing are a gift that I had nothing to do with having but have received as the richest possession of life itself.

Yesterday was the 51st birthday of my daughter, Laurie, who is the mother of two fine children, Rachel, 10, and Ryan, 12, both with wonderful minds and healthy spirits. They excel in school as if without effort, but I reminded them again, as I have many times before, never punish anyone with this gift but always use it to better serve them. By doing so, you better serve yourself and demonstrate to God your appreciation of the gift. It is a gift that can be taken away at any time, and sometimes we forget that and act as if we were the gift’s creator.

I knew your father, and something I’ve never mentioned before, I once had a conversation with him that touches somewhat on this subject. What I took away from that conversation – me being a young person full of myself – was that what I had and what I was came not from me but through me.

Thank you for sharing,

And always be well,

Jim