Why God doesn't heal amputees.

Jim posted a link to a website entitled "Why doesn't God heal amputees?". Here's my response - actually written a year ago.

I've blogged before about being a hopeless patriot. Here's why:

Last year, Rebecca and I were strolling through the breathtaking World War II Memorial in Washington, DC. She turned to say something to me and I had to wave her off through my tears - fearing that if I opened my mouth to answer I'd lose whatever control I had left and be reduced to a sobbing mess.

My reaction to the Memorial didn't surprise me, because I could never even get through the Public Service Announcements when Tom Hanks begged the nation to raise money for a memorial honoring a "generation who did nothing less...than save the world." Geez, even just typing it I'm tearing up.

Today would have been my grandfather's birthday. (85, I think) He was one of hundreds of thousands of that "generation who did nothing less than save the world." I grew up knowing little of his story, other than that he wasn't like other grampas - because he had no legs.

I remember my grandma explaining once that "a crazy man was trying to take over the world, and grampa joined the army to try to stop him."

Joined the army, was sent to Europe instead of the Pacific, as an infantryman instead of the mechanic or builder that he was - "cannon fodder," my grandma says. Over the years the story has unfolded to include details like "friendly fire" and "laying on a battlefield with bloody stumps for legs, screaming at his buddies not to leave him for dead."

I know he's not alone in his hero story, but his story is my story, too. Hours and hours - days and weeks - I spent with him, living only 5 minutes away my entire life. He accomplished more with no legs than 90% of the people I know who walk through life with whole bodies. Nothing was impossible for him - he built houses, tree forts, was a championship wheelchair bowler, avid Dolphin fan, never missed a piano recital or a grandson's football game if he could help it. He was rarely angry, rarely complained of pain (which he was constantly in), never mentioned the war.

How much easier it would have been to allow himself to pass out on that battlefield and just...not wake up. He'd have avoided decades of pain, struggle, ill-fitting prosthetics, sideways glances, horrible memories. But he also wouldn't have fathered my dad. He wouldn't have lived to see sons and grandsons play college sports, to hear his granddaughter play his favorite Gershwin concerto, to travel to Scotland - his homeland - with his family for his 50th wedding anniversary.

Growing up with gramps contributed to my optimistic, stoic, suck-it-up-and-move-on personality. My forgive-me-for-not-being-so-compassionate-about-your-problems-but-let-me-tell-you-about-my-grandfather personality.

Walking through that memorial had the same effect on me as watching "Saving Private Ryan," where these stories and pictures of horror in my mind become my gentle, fun-loving grampa, wielding a gun, fearing for his life in a foxhole, fighting for his life in a medic's tent, a life that - literally - is the reason I'm here.

So, forgive me if I'm a little passionate about my patriotism or a little callous to the whining of the American masses about our "problems." Gramps set a pretty high standard.