I just watched “Gleason,” the documentary about the football player living with ALS. Not being a sports fan, I had never heard of him. By the end of the film, my heart had “heard” him. And that, folks, is why I write!

I’ve been posting lots of humor lately, and that is a wonderful thing. But seeing this film unearthed so much beautiful sorrow in me. Yes, I used the word “beautiful.” If you watch Gleason, you will understand the meaning of that phrase.

Some of us are given lives with more rocks than diamonds. Ironically, we become the diamonds through dealing with the rocks. The piles of pain at some point morph into a moving feast of the heart. I had to turn away from the TV when it got too much for me, too graphic to follow. But I had days with my late husband just as bad, just as harrowing.

No one wants to hear the hard stuff. I am always advised to lighten up. I wear a mask as well as the next person. But the heart cannot be deceived because the heart lights the way. Not laughter, but this beautiful sorrow of which I saw in this film.

Nakedness is always in demand when it is beautiful. Not so much when it is horrific to see. The words I write come from so deep in me that most of the time my feelings about sorrow are not seen in any public display. I am not like that. But when I write, I fly. I don’t care what you feel about what I say. I am speaking living truth from the heart.

Someone, a dear friend, asked me if I would be interested in being on Buddha at the Gas Pump. I have reservations about that, for I have never had a single experience of enlightenment, of being one with everything. I have been shattered by two deaths in my nuclear family and have gone on. When I pass over, I don’t think God will want to interview me about how enlightened I was. He will more than likely want to know if I have forgiven myself for so many missteps along the spiritual way.

I think I was a terrible caregiver and in most ways I was. I could watch the film and see my family in it. How we grew tired and irritable, how we faltered and resisted what lay ahead. Humans are what they are. Grasping a concept about who you are is intellectual and therefore useless.

Gleason has a conversation with his father where he tells him, in a loud voice, that he is saved! He wants his father to quit trying to save him. His father is concerned about his soul. This is how it goes when the chips are down. When someone is dying. When someone is living with death. Everything and everyone gets out of shape. It is unavoidable.

Sigh. Watch this film and be prepared to weep and be weary of this world. This world that thinks politics is important. This world that urges us to not worry, to be happy, to distract ourselves from the challenges that throw us into the pit of hell.

I have been around the block of grief a few times. It has forced me to put on a facade of how I think I should be. People should not shield themselves from hopelessness in the face of disease and death. In Gleason, you see this family facing the hardest challenge of their lives. You see them becoming softer and more open instead of hardened and cruel. That is the challenge of everyone’s life. This is the true meaning of life.

Thanks for reading this.

Vicki Woodyard