I dated my
wife, Jean, immediately after our graduation from high school, and knew her
sister, Sue Long, and Sue’s husband, Clarence. I recall little Wade as a
toddler, and after Jean and I met again, Wade and I renewed our acquaintance.
Wade was in high school at the time. My nephew sustained the worst symptoms of
a condition known as Spina Bifida, and was a paraplegic; not having any feeling
or function in his legs, and was confined to a wheelchair throughout his entire
life.
It is
important to understand that among anyone and everyone I ever knew who suffered
with an almost unbearable medical condition, Wade seemed to tolerate it in the
most extraordinary manner.
Simply put,
…He was
Joyful. With a capital “J.”
I never, I
mean NEVER saw Wade without a smile on his face. That grin would light up a
room. Those shining, white “32’s” could almost literally light up the entire
universe. Had you asked him, he would have attributed his contagious
personality and attitude to the presence of His Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
in his young life.
Wade endured
countless surgeries during the brief 19 years which were allotted to him.
Though he grew weary, he never seemed to complain.
The dear boy
was the consummate singer. A soloist. While he never appeared on “The Voice,”
what he lacked in vocal talent was more than made up for by the fervency and
volume of his music. He sang about the Jordan River; until anyone who ever
heard him might immediately think of Wade when that body of water was alluded
to.
I came
across an old audio tape a couple of years ago, and snapped it into the player.
From across the years Wade seemed to delight in one more opportunity to light
up a room with his voice.
He prefaced
his solo with
“Uncle
Royce, we’re gonna meet Jesus one day. There will be no more tears. And it will
be fine!”
Pt.
2
Readers,
I felt compelled to provide you the previous entre into the life of a dear
young man named Wade; prior to relating one rather important facet of his
existence.
For
you see, Wade owned a dog; (or perhaps, as the old adage goes, ‘the dog owned
him’).
But
to begin at the beginning.
I
continue my story with an account by my sister-in-law, Sue, Wade’s mother.
“The
year was 1982, and I was enjoying my daily walk in the fair City of Bartow, and
this ‘Heinz-57’ style pooch began following me, and was at my heels all the way
back to my vehicle; which I’d parked at the post office. I had attempted to
discourage her from following me, but as she and I were forced to cross a
couple of major roads, I naturally kept her close to protect her from traffic.
She and I must have presented an unlikely duo, as we came to a halt next to my
car door.”
We
will rejoin Sue momentarily, but it occurs to me that as she came to a halt
next to her automobile my sister-in-law, (much like ‘Mrs. Faixfax’ in the
Victorian novel, “Jane Eyre”) might have mused,
“What
to do? What to do?”
“I
had a decision to make, and as it seemed to me that this non-descript pooch had
gone to a great deal of effort to team up with me and walk as far as she did,
and since I had a deserving son at home, who could not help but love and
cherish her, with only the slightest hesitation I grabbed the unlikely canine
around the waist, and shoved her into the passenger seat.”
(and)
“Of
course, I observed the hairy critter as I drove the eight or ten minutes home.
The dog was less than a year old, black and a proverbial ‘ball of fur.’ When I
arrived home I dropped the somewhat bedraggled pooch into the bed with my
husband, Clarence, and she began licking him like he was an old friend. When my
son, Wade arrived home from school, she jumped up into his lap, as he sat in
his wheelchair, and gave him much the same treatment as she had my husband.”
(and)
“Given
the physical characteristics of our newly adopted dog, you might imagine how
easy it was to come up with a name.
We
called her,
…Fluffy!”
Pt.
3
Sue
continues her story.
“From
that time forward Fluffy virtually lived on Wade’s lap. Whenever we returned
from visiting, shopping or some miscellaneous errand, and drove into the yard,
Fluffy would greet our van, spring onto the wheelchair lift, and take her
customary ride to the ground with him. No one could deny, she was Wade’s dog.”
While
Spina Bifida is not always a terminal condition, in terms of the physiological
challenges with which Wade contended, it almost always is.
And
as Providence would have it, Wade ultimately succumbed to his malady. And, I
think, God dispatched a very special angel to assist him with his journey
across that great divide which separates heaven and earth.
“The
first few times we came home without Wade, Fluffy would meet our van, and stand
looking at the door; from whence our son routinely made his appearance.
However, when she realized the lift wasn’t being lowered, and her favorite
human did not appear, she surrendered any further attempt to greet her
bewilderingly absent owner, and remained on the porch swing.”
Wade’s
precious pooch just seemed to give up, and it was all Sue or Clarence could do
to get her to eat anything. Within weeks, Fluffy met her own special angel;
(and at least I like to think, he looked a great deal like
…
Wade).
Sue
has surmised that the little creature died, not so much from hunger, as from a
…broken
heart.”
(And
who can say? Perhaps in the grand scheme of things there was something
intuitive about the fluffy little pooch, and perhaps unconsciously, she took
the only approach available to her; by which she might rejoin her dearly
departed companion).
Pt.
4
Wade’s headstone was inscribed with
his name, the perfunctionary dates, and (fittingly) a musical staff,
and the notation,
“Our Beloved Son”
“It Won’t Be Long"
Only
recently I saw a photograph of another headstone which for the parents,
families and friends of the disabled speaks volumes.
The
granite marker has at its summit the scale model of a wheelchair, and its
former occupant. ‘Former’ since the little boy is now…standing, with his arms
reaching upwards, and with his eyes fixed on the sky.
As
I survey the photo further, I notice His father or mother has adorned the chair
with a couple of less permanent additions; a handful of flowers, and a small,
white teddy bear.
When
I mentioned the picture to Wade’s mother, she acknowledged that he had seen and
commented on that very photo, and affirmed that, one day, he intended to do
very much the same thing.
And it occurs to me that had the headstone been tailor-made
for Wade, rather than the teddy bear, a stuffed replica of a ‘fluffy’, black,
mixed breed pooch would have replaced it in the seat of the wheelchair.
There’s a popular cartoon which depicts St. Peter standing at
heaven’s gate, and a small pooch beneath his feet; scrambling to greet a
newcomer. In the foreground an aged man can be seen approaching the duo.
With this, St. Peter exclaims,
“So you’re little Bobby. Well, Rex here has been ‘going on
and on’ about you for the last 50 years!”
Well, in this case Master Wade preceded his precious Fluffy,
and the two were only separated for a matter of weeks. But, no doubt, the two
experienced quite a reunion, and I think that all of heaven must have
celebrated along with them.
It must have been a bit confusing for Fluffy to see Wade
bounding up heaven’s steps; supported by legs as strong as his heart and spirit
had always been.
I can see them now
Running and romping and rampaging amongst the multi-colored
meadows of heaven; bedecked with every flower of the rainbow. And the joy which
filled up Wade’s life on earth has proven to be a dim reflection of the
incomparable joy which now threatens to overwhelm both him, and his precious
pooch.
No, (as his headstone infers) it won’t be long ‘til we’re all
together again. Wade and his mother and father and sister. His family and his
friends. We’ll all be reunited again.
…Just across that river about which Wade so often sang.
But until then, I think my dear nephew’s days will be filled
up with a pleasure so surreal and so sublime, and that he and Fluffy will wile
the hours doing the kind of things
…that a boy and his dog do.
by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending
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