ABSTRACT
Six of us sat in a restaurant in the beautiful town of Bar Harbor, Maine. We had just spent the afternoon hiking the two-mile Sand Beach trail at Acadia National Park enjoying the sunny warm weather, salt-scented ocean air, and the incredibly beautiful vistas. My ears were regaled by nature’s music played by the regular pattern of undulating waves. My husband and I, along with our dear church friends Tom, Anna, William, and Lucy, were nestled in the relaxing atmosphere on the second floor of Poor Boy’s seafood restaurant as the powerful fan cooled us. We in this group make good traveling companions as we enjoy one another’s fellowship, friendly humor, and fine food. In fact, these same two couples had accompanied us on a Mediterranean cruise to celebrate our twentyfifth anniversary the previous year. Having warmed the banks of Rome, Kusadasi (Turkey), and the Greek locations of Santorini, Katakolon, and Piraeus, we now settled on the East Coast of the United States to feast on lobster, spinach lentil soup, broccoli vinaigrette, pasta marinara, fresh bread, and baked potatoes. Of course, some of us had a hankering for Maine’s well-known blueberries. So the meal was to be topped off at the end with the restaurant’s famous blueberry pie in shortbread walnut crust and vanilla ice cream. Life cannot get any better! Because these folks were like brothers and sisters to me, I took the risk in this idyllic setting to ask a potentially troubling question, hoping not to spoil the mood but to generate good, serious conversation. “Do you think that I could be considered ‘damaged goods’ to my husband?” I asked, hoping for their thoughtful reflections about how a spouse might view a partner who has developed an unexpected disability after marriage. This was the case with me, as my eye disorder manifested itself about seven years
into marriage. Hoping that the evening with such a difficult question, I to be honest and share their comments with the understanding that I wanted to learn about their views and would not take it personally. Neither, I suspected, would my husband, who was listening with interest.
