Seeing Helps Believing

by Dan Masterton

You ever have a story that you’re just itching to tell? You bring it to the fore of your memory. You run through the details to get everything straight. You rehearse some of the punch lines to get the wording just right.

Then, the moment comes. You get the attention of the group. You lay out the context. You start to unload this great tale.

But you sense something is awry. Your audience is not riveted. Why isn’t everyone on the edges of their metaphorical seats? Why are mouths not agape at the gravitas of this yarn I’m spinning? How come cell phone videos aren’t recording this impeccably orated story as it unfolds live?!

So you trudge onward to the end of the story, hoping the tide will turn but knowing it probably won’t. And then you reach the end, and exasperated and disappointed you seek to extract some bit of pitiful ovation by ruefully declaring, “Well, I guess you had to be there.”

It’s the great admission of storytelling defeat. Craft your delivery as you might, something about the story just didn’t translate to hearers when it was told in retrospect. For whatever reason, the impact of what you experienced was best felt live, and became diluted by the distance of time and space. The story couldn’t recapture enough of the moment.

This feeling comes up often between my wife, Katherine, and I as we catch each other up on our days at work.

I might talk about a lesson I taught, a conversation I had with a colleague or a student, or a liturgy we celebrated. And Katherine, having been a student, having attended Catholic school, and even having seen me with my students at sporting events or other school activities, can imagine the scene a bit and follow along pretty easily.

Katherine works as an oncology nurse. She may talk about a new admission she received, a conversation she had with a patient and/or their family, or even a medical intervention she implemented or advocated for. I’ve picked up a fair deal of lingo as she’s shared these stories, and I’ve been a patient in clinics and hospitals before. But there’s an upper limit on what I can imagine or how closely I can follow along.

While teachers can bring a friend or family member along into their work world now and then, nurses are limited (and you can substitute other professions accordingly). Due to HIPAA laws for privacy and confidentiality, sterility precautions in hospitals, safety and security measures, and a host of other things, there is a firm and clear asymptote on how much I can really know and visualize as she narrates her nights back to me.

At a certain point, my follow-up questions and her eloquent wit max out. And sometimes this prompts her to say, “I wish you could just see me in action.” And I do, too. I know she’s proficient, adept, intelligent, compassionate, and so much more as she works. I know she’s living out a concrete vocation, answering a carefully discerned call to combine her intellectual gifts toward science and medicine with her innate ability to care for others. At some point in her stories, you just had to be there. And I cannot be.

I think of good ol’ cliched “doubting Thomas,” to whom Jesus declares, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” (John 20:29). I don’t really discredit Thomas for how he handles the situation, and I think his honesty and passion are admirable. I agree with Jesus that such a leap of faith is valuable and spiritually important. Yet I know as a human -- and as a teacher who has learned about multiple intelligences and different types of learning -- that seeing something can deepen one’s understanding and processing in a unique way.

Over Labor Day weekend, Katherine and I took our baby daughter, Lucy, down to Dallas to visit Katherine’s family. Lucy is five months old, and her neck and body control is to a point where she can sit up sturdily and independently for a good while. So with warm Texas weather and a backyard pool at our disposal, we decided to try Lucy’s first swim. I picked up some pool diapers, and we loaded Lucy up into her swimsuit and summer hat for a first dip. It was so fun to help her wade in bit by bit, to tow her around in circles, and to float her on her tummy and back. It was even funnier to teach her how to splash, as she is not coordinated enough yet to splash without getting water on her own face.

Later that day (and again later that night, and yesterday, and this morning, and so on), I opened the videos that Lucy’s Uncle Matt took for us on my phone. While I enjoyed seeing Lucy’s facial expressions and clumsy bodily maneuvers again, while I relished the smiles and laughter of Katherine in the water beside Lucy, I couldn’t help but notice myself.

I am the dad in the water. I’m the one holding her up as she floats. I’m the one supporting her while she splashes. I am Lucy’s dad.

As the son of a father who brought a handheld camera to all family events, I grew up watching and rewatching home videos, shot dutifully and gratuitously by my dad. The retrospect and reminiscence and nostalgia is deliciously palpable when we sit down to watch. We found great consolation recently when dad unearthed the first video he shot of me after I came home from the hospital -- my mom is sitting relaxedly on the couch, my older brother climbing on, over, and around her as she gently holds me and talks casually to my dad. It’s amazing. I love my parents, and there’s these beautiful recorded sights that remind me how they love me.

I’m that guy for Lucy. And for Katherine. And for whatever additional children we may be blessed with. I am dad. I already knew that; I know that. But stepping outside myself and seeing myself do this dad milestone with my daughter on the video took my heart and mind to a whole ‘nother level.

Maybe you had to be there? I’m glad I was, and I pray I always will be… poor Lucy… poor Katherine!