Monday, November 17, 2008

My Friend Lake

My friend Lake died on Friday. He was something else. Funny. Full of life. Smart. Determined. Stubborn as hell. Those were all qualities that served him well. Lake was born with cerebral palsy.

He spent life unable to talk, walk, feed himself or do most anything that you and I take for granted. If no one was available to help him get out of his wheelchair at the end of the day, he spent the night sitting up. If he got to bed and his aide didn't show up in the morning, he spent the day in bed – waiting.

But nothing got Lake down.

He and his wife Jane, who is also confined to an electric wheelchair, used to come to church when I was the pastor. They would roll down the center aisle, and because there wasn't a lot of space in the sanctuary, they would park in front of the front row. We sang a lot of upbeat music and I remember watching the joy on Lake's face as he danced to the music from his chair.

There was a computer attached to the front of his wheelchair and a small silver dot stuck to his forehead. Through the miracle of modern technology he could select items and words by aiming the dot at the screen and selecting the text. After assembling his sentences he could tell the computer to "read" what he wanted to "say."

With a little advanced planning, Lake would read Scripture for services. I would email him the passage and he would painstakingly add the text to his magic voice machine. When the time came in the service for Scripture I would sit in the front pew and hold the microphone to his machine while he read. To me, it was incredibly moving to have him participating each week. It was a computer generated voice, flat and emotionless but to many who where there, it was like music.

I can't imagine what it was like to spend his life trapped in such a broken body. Yet he did it with grace and humor. I already miss him. And whenever I hear the synthesized voice of the NOAA Weather Radio alerts I stop short and look around for my friend.

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