Yosemite: A Short Story

While the boys’ vision tapered quickly, their enthusiasm, for the most part, did not. “Tell me,” John would ask, “what do you see?” Rather than lie and say something like “Oh, not much,” we described sights as best we could. We didn’t want him to feel like he was missing out. But he was. We’d have magnified the loss, however, if we’d held back. In Yosemite, where we traveled for many years in a row, I found myself saying, “John, about a hundred yards away there is a grey wolf. His hair is long and he’s standing up on this rock...The waterfall is crashing...” Later, when recounting the adventure to a friend or with us, he’d say with great enthusiasm, something like, “Remember when we saw that wolf and he was...” He “saw” through our eyes; he experienced because we shared as best we could God’s visual wonders. Of course, we also tried to do rather than just see. Summers, we did our best to increase the quality of life for all manner of fish by feeding them worms one at a time via a fishing pole and hook. (For you animal rights activists, don’t worry, no fish were injured in the process.) As the seasons changed, we headed in other directions: Hawaii, for instance. John surfed (blind); Ben …show more content…
It is also potentially dangerous. The Porsche was, is, a symbol of power. My anger was was real, but needed to be transformed into something useful or it would not only destroy me, but those around me. How could I transform that power into something good? Love. That was the power that could transform lives - even my own. I couldn’t do it with the power of Joe. But if I turned it over to God, perhaps He could shape it, me. Anger is only a feeling. Transient. My goal became to not act on anger’s destructive forces, but to use its energy in action to serve, to love. Practice love, Joe. There have been many, many times when strong emotions surfaced. But before they overwhelmed us, God sent a friend to help carry the load or help us to make sense of