Fr. RcCoon

Over the years people have started accusing me of going to sleep up front during church services, dozing during Bible readings, napping during offertory anthems, zonking out during the sermon if I wasn’t in the pulpit. Linda has been my main accuser, and it hasn’t been unusual for someone to say to her, “Look, Tom’s asleep.” Not so. Never.

But we found the problem.

My eyeglasses prescription has hardly changed at all over the past twenty or thirty years. The doctor would always say, “maybe a tiny bit, but certainly not enough to warrant paying for new glasses unless you just want a new pair of glasses, but here, I’ll give you a new prescription if you want it.” No, I’m the ultimate cheapskate, some of my glasses are older than my shoes, and I get fifteen or twenty years out of a pair of shoes. However, during an eye exam last month I was prepared for bad news and a new and stronger eyeglasses prescription, having noticed that my vision is getting worse. Not just up close, reading and the computer, plus pulpit and altar, but especially seeing and driving at night. 

It turned out my eyeglasses prescription still hasn’t changed. And the cataracts haven’t changed all that much. It’s the eyelids, the droopy eyelids. Actually in my case, the muscles that hold them up are getting lazy so that my eyelids cover up more than half the pupil. Not much light has been getting in.

  

So this morning I have an appointment with a surgeon at the eye center to have it corrected. No cutting and trimming eyelids, he will go underneath and do something to the eyelid muscles. He calls it routine, but it isn’t his eyes, it’s my eyes. If it were your eyes it would be routine, but it’s my eyes.

Also, they call it surgery. 

My father’s eyelids were droopy and he had it corrected. My son’s eyelids are droopy, far more so than mine. We’ll see how this turns out.

And whether I look like Fr. RcCoon at the wedding I’m officiating this weekend. 

And in the pulpit Sunday.

Don't stare.

TW