I am Robert, the oldest, grayest and the tallest. Others are smarter and better looking.
As an outwardly gregarious I love to talk – mostly about important life issues. I am a family physician, the father of 10 kids and most important the husband of Catherine. All of these require immense ability to talk a lot just to be heard. I love to joke especially with Catherine. We have been going steady for 36 years. I fell in love with her as a junior employee when I was the waterfront director. Ever since, she has been the director and I have been the junior employee.
Furthermore, as a family doctor I am a professional talker. I have learned to be very articulate about complex, life issues. Patients often come to my office to discuss details of deep life issues that have not even been discussed with their spouse of many decades. Parents who have lost a young child, a law student diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a spouse dying of pancreatic cancer.
With all this communication affluence - why do I have such hard time writing about my own fears, questions and needs? Do the answers in my mind prevent the questions in my heart from being asked? Why do I answer the question in my mind and avoid the needs of my heart? The outward ease with which I am able to address these issues actually prevents me from uncovering them in my own life.
Many of these things are good. Good life. Good relationships. Good job. Beneath this is the shadowy fear that death will someday separate me from someone I love and I will be alone. Genesis says in the midst of the many things God found “good” that “it is not good for man to be alone.” What if someday I am a widower rather than a husband? What if I am alone and lonely? I saw the loneliness in my dad after my mom died. Perhaps this fear has kept me running from what are the real issues in life?
I will no doubt be writing more about the hard things, which ultimately break down the hardness of my heart and grant me the inner vision to see myself as I truly am.
Robb Blackwood
