February 17, 2003
DOWN HOME:
Quiet treatment is quite trying
___Some of my friends accused me of giving my wife an early birthday present.
___Almost two weeks before Joanna turned (well, you don't really need to know how old she turned), I got laryngitis. No squawking, backtalk or sass--only squeaking, coughing and frustrated whispers.
___The whole mess started with a sinus headache. It came on during a spell when a warm wind blew out of the south, apparently dumping tons of mountain cedar pollen all over North Texas.
___When I was a kid growing up in the Panhandle, in the middle of wheat and maize farms, I had hay fever all the time. Some folks think I'm joking when I say I used to sneeze until my elbows ached, but I'm not.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___Thanks to modern science, I can squirt a spray up my nose and breath freely every day of the year. Except when mountain cedar pollen blows in. Then, I get a sinus headache, and two days later, I fall silent. Or squeaky, anyway.
___Usually, this malady lasts for three or four days, and then I'm back to full voice. If I could yodel, I'd be back to yodeling voice.
___But this time, I felt like someone had taken out my vocal chords, dragged them behind a Mack truck and plugged 'em back in.
___The first week I was mute, I went on a trip. One night, some friends and I went out to eat. The food was good, but the place was about as loud as a jet taking off in your kitchen.
___Mark, who's worked with me for years and knows my tastes, interpreted for me to the waiter. I felt like a ventriloquist--I thought about what I wanted to say, and Mark spoke.
___My friend Clay sat on the other side. We tried to carry on a conversation. I quickly decided to boil sentences down to their roots, extracting all adjectives and adverbs.
___"How's house?" I'd ask, my lips inches from his ear. Later, in response to a question, I'd shout, "Lindsay, freshman, Hardin-Simmons!"
___Clay's a great sport. He smiled a lot and pretended to understand, but I think we both were exhausted when the meal was over.
___That Sunday, I planned to back out of teaching my Bible study class, but Carl, the other teacher, was even sicker. I learned that if you whisper for 45 minutes, Baptist people will work hard to listen.
___I also learned a smidgen about what being handicapped must feel like. While I wouldn't dare diminish the experience of people for whom handicaps are a daily, persistent challenge, I got a glimpse of that reality: To know but not to be able to do. To think but not to be able to say. To be more than the sum of one's parts.
___Sometimes, we need to take a step back to to see God's graciousness. Maybe it's a full voice. Maybe it's a blessing long taken for granted. And maybe it's saying, "Happy birthday!" to the light of my life.
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