I guess it started at about the time the last leaves were drifting from the trees, a nasty cold, my statistical contribution to the national adult average of about three colds a year. I ignored the symptoms and kept on plowing through life. What else was there to do?
Eventually the symptoms subsided… for a while. Then suddenly one morning they were back, this time with a mild sore throat. I tried to tell Millie I was ready to take her for her walk but my voice came out as a pitiful croak and she looked at me quizzically, cocking her head and backing away. Maybe it was just the dry heat in my aging apartment building or the insidious dust from the brick pointing they were doing. The next day I was sneezing uncontrollably and then the whole thing went into my chest and I started coughing like Dustin Hoffman’s character Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy (though I didn’t start jaywalking and screaming at taxi cabs).
Mercifully that all eventually cleared up, more or less, and evolved into a sort of low-grade annoyance. I alternated between coughing, sneezing and croaking, depending on the day. Months later I still don’t feel completely cold-free. A lot of people I know are experiencing the same thing this year, the endless cold.
Did I go to the doctor, you ask? Of course not. Who has time to go to the doctor, especially when you’re not feeling well? And what can they do for a lingering cold anyway? Nothing except tell you that everyone’s got it (including them).
Did I pray? Not really. I complained is more like it. And there is more genuine suffering for the Creator of the universe to worry about than my miserable malaise. Why nag God about a nagging cold?
I’m sure this has happened to me before, it just always seems worse when it’s happening. Tomorrow I have to get on a plane to California to celebrate the birthday of one of our outstanding board members and generous contributors, Evelyn Freed, at a party on Catalina Island that I wouldn’t miss for the world. I’ve warned her about my condition but she doesn’t seem to mind. “The sunshine will do you good,” she said.
I hope so. Julee, who accuses me of thinking that I am invincible, is already outfitting me with remedies and potions. I fear it’s too late for all that. But it isn’t too late to learn a lesson. What the winter of the endless cold teaches me, I think, is that I am indeed not invincible. I am vulnerable, a universal human trait. And in our vulnerabilities we grow closer to God. He meets us at our weakest points when we need him most. So maybe I should stop complaining and start praying. Not for my cold to disappear but simply to stay connected to the source of all healing.
