Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I looked, and I saw beside the cherubim four wheels, one beside each of the cherubim; the wheels sparkled like topaz. As for their appearance, the four of them looked alike; each was like a wheel intersecting a wheel.

• Ezekiel 10:9-10

Okay, this is the second time Ezekiel sees a vision involving wheels and they all look alike.  Maybe Ezekiel felt that once you have seen one wheel, you have seen them all.  (check out Ezekiel 1:16.)

But seriously, I went to the eye doctor the other day.  I thought I was going to get a stern lecture about my chronic dry eye.  His ejaculations, nothing vulgar, after the last office visit made my wife think that I would need cornea transplants.  He shifted his anger at me to an anger on her that my wife should bring up the subject.  My wife was a surgical technician, so she knew about such things.

When my wife passed away, I got out of the habit of using the heat mask.  The heat mask helps in stimulating the watery tears and suppressing the oily mucus.  I have no idea how, but I have experienced the changes, but when my wife passed away, I had tears flowing so regularly that all my dry eye symptoms went away.  No burning.  No itchy eyes.  No oily gunk in the mornings.  And no foreign body sensation, making it feel that I had an eyelash in my eye.  And heating a mask in the microwave and wearing it for seven minutes or longer was not on my things to do while I was getting ready for family coming to the memorial service and working with the pastor on what the service should be like.

Even with all the arrangements, they buried my wife’s ashes instead of putting her in a columbarium.  So, just one more time for the government to get something wrong.

But the doctor looked at my dry eye.  He tried to sell me on a laser treatment that is not covered by MEDICARE and I would have to pay nearly two thousand dollars.  I never learned if that was per treatment or the total for four treatments.  But the doctor said it cleared up rosacea which he thinks is the cause of my dry eye.  I smiled.  I am not paying that kind of money on a guess that it might help … some.  Since he did not want to see me for a year, I took that to mean the dry eye was better than before.

But on the way out, maybe due to my eyes being dilated, I looked toward the greeter’s station.  She had been so helpful earlier that afternoon.

I saw a woman getting checked in.  She was my wife’s height.  She was my wife’s build.  She wore a pair of faded jeans that could have easily been a pair of jeans that I donated to the Vietnam Veterans.  The lady’s blouse looked familiar.  Her nose was like my wife’s and her glasses were similar.  To top it off, literally, it looked like she was wearing one of my wife’s wigs, the one in the photo above.

Sure, the clothing and the wig could be duplicates.  The size was uncanny.  When she turned toward me, the face was all wrong.  Maybe it was the lack of a smile. Until I saw the face, I thought I had found a doppelganger. But then, the voice… No one has a voice like hers.

But with my eyes dilated, was I seeing things?  Was I seeing what I wanted to see?  I am so glad I said nothing.  How do you start a conversation?  “Ma’am, you look a lot like my wife who died six months ago.  Where did you get the wig and clothing?”  Nope.  Someone would call the police or the looney bin.

No, I laughed, and prayed.

Dear Lord, I know where my wife is.  She is with You, and she has never felt better.  I do not wish for her to return.  Someday, I will be in Heaven also.  Thank you for the little glimpse.  May Your Will be done.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.