20160215 - The light of the body is the eye - Fay Berry

It is the 15th February, 2016 and I am having an “off” day.

I don’t “grizzle” very often, but I feel like doing it today.

In 2008 I had a stroke and for some years after that I did not “travel” too well. This last year, however, has been very much on the up-and-up, but today, well that’s another matter.

I have difficulty with my knees and walking, but that is not my problem because I have got used to that. I can still, with the help of my beautiful little car, go where I want and can generally walk far enough to get where I want.

However, I also have diabetes, “uncontrolled diabetes” my doctor tells me.

I TRY to control my sugar levels. I test my sugar levels every morning and evening and take my drugs and my insulin shots pretty religiously, but I am not really successful enough.

It has affected my eyes, which, together with my hearing are my most important and valuable possessions.

I am somewhat overweight and I try, try, try to lose weight. My doctor again tells me that for a diabetic to maintain the same weight over time is the same as an “ordinary” person, losing weight.

For a diabetic to LOSE weight, is pretty well a miracle. Well, I have done well this year. I have LOST 1.5k. not much, but it is LOST, not gained.

For me to lose weight it seems that I just about have to stop eating almost altogether. I don’t cook any more, I graze. I buy vegetables and mostly eat them raw, except for sweet potatato which I cook.

Well, this week my eyes have been giving me real trouble. I know what is wrong. My right eye leaks fluid from the eye and then I have to go to my specialist and have laser treatment to seal the leaks.

I am so angry with myself because I was booked for a specialist appointment last week and cancelled. Why? Because my eye was hurting?! and I wasn’t feeling well. I re-booked for 5 weeks hence which was the earliest available appointment time. Then my eye got worse. I managed to get an appointment for this Thursday for which I am very grateful.

In the meantime, I can see through my left eye, but very little through my right. It makes me feel, frightened and sick in the stomach.

I love writing my blogs and working on my web site and the thought of not being able to see is, for me, the most terrible thing that could happen to me. I know there are worse things, but for the present, not seeing, would for me be the worst.

I’ve thought about it. If I couldn’t see, I could still type, and being a touch typist of the old generation, I can type fast. But then, someone would have to read what I had written and correct what would be a multitude of spelling errors, because although I am a fast typist I make lots of errors and go through and do corrections after I have completed a section.

What I pray to God is not that I won’t die, because I don’t care if I die; I just want all my important parts to keep functioning UNTIL I die.

My dad, doing what he loved best!

I think of my dear Dad and how blessed was he. One day he was about to go out on a fishing trip with a young brother and had just taken his trailer up to park and was walking down on the sand towards his boat. He collapsed on the sand and “died” for three minutes.

When he woke up he was so happy because he thought that if he could die like that, he wouldn’t have to fear dying.

Nine months later he was once again going fishing and had finished parking his trailer and was walking towards his boat and once again he collapsed on the sand.

This time he DID die, for real, and for keeps!

I didn’t grieve for my dear Dad. How could I? How could I grieve when I knew he would be so happy that he had died that way?

Well, that’s what I would like, a sudden and abrupt death after having been able to use all my faculties right up until the very last.

The thought of going to Bethsalem with nothing “working” is my particular fear. I just want to be like my Dad and continue living my little life until the last trump sounds, and the dead in Christ rise from the grave to be “ever with the Lord.”

Sorry for being so morbid, but actually, having written this, I feel a lot better already!