“Heal Me Too”/Mrs. Bartimaeus

(Mk. 10: 46-52, Mk. 8:22-26)

This weekend, some will hear the story of healing blind Bartimaeus. Let’s look at it from his wife’s viewpoint.

I was so embarrassed, I started the shushing. Right there in front of everyone, my husband bellowed to some fool preacher called Jesus. Where Mark later said, “many rebuked him,” I was first. I must have told him twenty times to hush, but that only made it worse. The ridiculous man just kept broadcasting his need. Why couldn’t he hide it politely, as all the rest of us had learned to do? I for one knew how to keep needs bundled, almost smothered. It was startling when Jesus stood still. How, in all the tumult and noise, had he heard one lone voice of one unimportant person on the fringe?

I must admit my outrage when some idiot in the crowd whispered, “take courage; get up, he is calling you” (Mk. 10: 49). Now I was Doomed. History. Toast. I couldn’t look when he eagerly threw aside his cloak to “spring up.” The man hasn’t sprung in twenty years. The last coil of energy I remember was during our courtship. Before his accident, he was springy—but now he was old and awkward, so he probably “lurched.” Was this a pathetic effort to recapture an earlier happiness? Was he crazy to think this guy might help him? And how did he ever find his way to that voice? After he impetuously tossed the cloak, did some homing instinct lead to what he needed most?

It seemed so futile and heart-breaking, I started trudging home. On the way I worried about him being shamed and disappointed in front of the crowd. How would I endure their nasty gossip afterwards? In a place the size of Jericho, word gets around faster than the flip of a bird’s wing. So I guess I missed the healing.

But I got the story second-hand: all the neighbors chattering eagerly at once, then ol’ Bart himself, appearing at the door. He rushed right for me, elated, fairly leaping. For a second I hoped he’d forgotten how much better I looked the last time he saw me. What if he noticed the weight I’d gained? The stress of those years took its toll on my body. I knew I was more stooped, more grey, more wrinkled. But he drew me into his arms as though I were his bride. Kissing my hair, he told me how beautiful I was. Well, I won’t lie. I relished that—what woman doesn’t want to drink the youth potion?

But soon the neighbors went home, the excitement died down, and I faced harsh realities. Daily I worried: He made a fair living as a beggar; I didn’t want to lose it. Sighted, he’d get no sympathy. Now what would we do? Was he expecting me to start some lucrative career? Even deeper bubbled a dark thought. For all those years, I had been his eyes. Sighted now, would he still need me? We had a system for coping then; now he’d wrecked it. Sometimes he stares at me so intently I want to scream.

Bit by bit, I’m growing used to Bartimaeus’ wild enthusiasm for everything he can see. He’ll run in from the garden, balancing vegetables in one hand and flowers in the other. “Look!” he’ll cry with a child’s delight. He never misses a sunrise, which has interrupted my sleep and made me even more crabby. Aglow himself, he watches the dawn stroke the treetops and hillsides. A walk to the market takes forever. He stops, astonished, at every bend in the road. Connecting voices with faces is another exercise in sheer glee.

When he says he’s following “on the way,” what does that mean? Does it have something to do with this new-found awe and praise? I feel left behind. Even the things I take for granted stun him. He gets eloquent about a lake glazed with the silver mesh of sun, or buds curled tight as fists. To him, every annoying insect is a marvelous toy. My husband has become curious as my infant grandson, examining the intricacies of his own hands and toes with painstaking attention.

And don’t get him started on stars, or the patterns in clouds! Please—I’ve got dishes to wash and a porch to sweep! Part of me wishes he’d shut up, but another part wants to see everything as freshly as he does—like taking that first stroll through paradise in Genesis. Every day he’s intrigued as Adam. When do I get the chance to take his hand and look out like Eve? It sounds crazy, but I’m almost tempted to echo his words, “Master, I want to see.”

Excerpt from More Hidden Women of the Gospels by Kathy Coffey. Orbis Press, 800-258-5838, orbisbooks.com.