As the sculptor worked on the shaping of the piece, one of his tools
nicked a small corner of it. A small chip broke off, which when viewed
through from the other side seemed to be huge and ugly, but in reality
was quite small. Being the perfectionist that he was he flew into a fit
of despair. In the background his partner worked on, watching but not
saying anything, at least yet.
“I’ve planned, shaped, and molded on this piece forever! This was to be
my masterwork, my legacy to us both! Now, it is ruined! I can’t fix
this! It will never be what I had envisioned for it now!”
And with that final anguished cry he swept the piece from the table.
Crashing to the floor the sculpture broke into thousands of pieces. He
sunk to the floor sobbing amongst the shattered remnants of it all.
Softly a touch to his shoulder brought him back from his grief to
reality. His partner was standing there smiling gently.
“Come on, I know it feels like the end of the world, but it will seem
better tomorrow. You need your rest, you’ve been going at this non-stop
for days. Please, go to bed, it will be alright.”
“ Are you nuts! It’s over! I’ll never be able to complete this now! This
was to be the crowning achievement to my career…I planned to call it
“life”…now it’s just trash…” He broke back into body wrenching sobs.
“Come on, you’ve got to go to bed. I’ll take care of all this, just rest
now.”
She got him up off the floor, dusted him off, and helped him get into
bed. As he fell asleep, she looked down lovingly at him. Just as she has
always done, she set out to pick up the shattered pieces. “You know, he
has worked so hard on this, I know we can still do something with it…”
She started to work.
The next morning he got up, feeling lost for the first time in years. He
had no direction, no focus. The piece he worked on for all those years
shattered. What could he do now? Then he heard her call. “ Come in the
workroom, I’ve something to show you.”
He walked into the room. There, standing back on the table was the glass
sculpture, whole again. No, wait, it’s changed. Where a plain glass
sculpture once stood, now stood a wonderful, prismatic shining piece lit
from within by a beautiful pure white light. The cracks from where the
piece had shattered now caused the light to break into wonderful rainbow
colors that filled the room. “It’s breath-taking! But how, why…”
“Shh…it’s okay my love. Last night I came back in here, and as I looked
at the scattered pieces I saw the potential for this. I know you called
it “life”, but I thought a better name would be “Love”…”
I wrote this after reading a thread in one of the
Parkinson's forums about the PD personality and marriage. It got me to
thinking about all my plans, my dreams for the future, and how they have
all been changed since I was diagnosed with PD. I'm 43, and was looking
forward to the future. Now, I am still looking forward to the future with
my wife, but it's going to be a lot different now. This is what I was
trying to convey with the piece I wrote.
Regards,
Ray
RW2112@cablelynx.com
