Perspective

Where you stand makes a difference. If you stand too close to someone when you talk, they back up. Their personal space was invaded. But you can see someone better from close up, right? So you want to be fairly close when you're talking, especially if you don't want to be overheard or if you're in a noisy environment and want to hear better too.

The same is not true of perspective. Being too close skews everything, distorts everything. You can't see the "big picture" if you're too close to the Person. Event. Issue.

It's been over four months since Tim died, and my perspective has changed. A little distance from the event has done that. Sharpened it, actually. Increased my focus on some aspects of the person, the event, and the issue - life. Past, present and future, the ongoing NOW life of Tim that stitches them all together in one fabric. The NOW life of me myself.

A couple of times during these months as I have talked to the Lord and to Tim, I searched through photos of Tim and picked several to keep on hand in the kitchen and office. It's easier to talk to Tim when I'm looking at a photo and visualizing his face. And I came to realize just how physically tired and ill Tim was last December.
When I asked the Lord what Tim looks like in heaven, he directed me to a couple of photos from the 1980's. One was our wedding picture. One I pulled out yesterday was taken in the parking lot at Creekside, where Tim is leaning against his Cutless Supreme and smiling as he looks directly at me holding the camera. Except that he has more hair now, this is pretty much what he looks like.

Comparing that photo with the last December photo, it's easy to tell how tired Tim had become. He's not tired now, though - he's full of energy and enthusiasm, interest and excitement. He tries to stir up more of those attributes in me these days, get me out of my physical, emotional and spiritual lethargy in the mornings. "Up and at 'em!" I'm not a morning person but I'm trying.

My perspective on our NOW life together is gradually changing, and I'm having fewer lonely, self-pitying afternoons. Less intense ones. I find reasons to do something, go somewhere outside of the condo in those times. Sometimes I save up errands so I can do them later in the day, the worst time of day for me. And then I ask Tim to go with me when I leave the house.

As I drive down roads and streets and walk around in stores, I look at these places as he is looking at them. Some of these he had never seen before and my descriptions of them in the past had been very skimpy. It's hard for me to try to describe something "on the fly" as we drive or walk pass. Now Tim is seeing for himself those streets and stores and commenting on them. Pretty. Crowded. Junky. Busy. Interesting. Expensive. Hmmmm. Now I understand, he says.

Then as Tim describes his present-day life and activities to me I try to visualize his environment as he is looking at it, and my perspective of life and eternity changes too. From time to time the Lord gives me a glimpse of what is ahead for Tim, for me, and for the world. He enlivens my perspective! He expands, widens, broadens, deepens it, yet focuses and clarifies it, like letting me examine a wide-angle high resolution photograph with a magnifying glass.

Keep things in perspective, people say. They usually mean don't go overboard, don't take things too seriously, don't be a fanatic. My changing perspective might require some or all of those, considering what lies ahead.