An open letter to B:
You left early today, right after lunch. Mexican food; I can still taste it on my tongue. This building seems like it contains less oxygen when you are gone. I struggle to concentrate in this wizened air.
You're with the boy, off to do your Christmas shopping. I wonder how you're doing, you who hate the whole shopping-thing, on this one of the few days left till the big day. I imagine you out there fighting the throngs of fellow procrastinators, my hero in grey. You're both out there on my behalf, and the thought of it is touching.
You've been so sick for the last week and a half. I wonder if you know how much it tears at my heart, to see you feel so punky. The night I spent on the couch nearly killed us. The next night I knew how little you slept; I laid awake most of those hours listening to you breathe, feeling the heat come off your body there next to mine.
And then we thought we had it licked. You felt better. We went in for that routine blood test only to have them get all upset. I knew from the doctor's face that they were sending us right over to the hospital. I waited in the radiology waiting room while you had your CT scan, my brand new book upside down forgotten on the floor. Were you all right? Was God even listening? And then when the on-call doctor came in on his day off to see you, I knew they wanted to keep you. Frantic while you talked to him I must have paced a hole in that waiting room floor. When he gave us the choice whether to have you admitted for the night or to come back for more tests in the morning, I knew what you would choose. Oh, you were coming home with me!
That night you slept in my arms as I breathed you. And over and over again the movie played in my head: how there was hurt, and pain, and fear, and then there was nothing... and then, by some miracle, there was you. And in this short year I can barely remember a time when there was no you. My joy, my treasure, my beloved, my B.
We went back for the lab tests the next morning after a long and leisurely breakfast, just the two of us, with the snow and the Sunday paper, over coffee. We went back prepared for the news, that the white count would still be dangerously high, that they didn't know why you were ill, that they were admitting you to the hospital.
And miracle of miracles: the lab results were back to normal! The doctors baffled, but pleased. Praise the Lord...
Today you're out doing the things you meant to do two weeks ago, and I'm so very thankful that you feel well enough to do them. Not because of the task, but because of YOU. Because you were my gift last Christmas, my gift this Christmas, and for every year to come. I want nothing else but you, B. You are my comfort and my joy.
How great and wonderful is this life!
May everyone's lives be blessed, this Christmas season, and all year round.
You left early today, right after lunch. Mexican food; I can still taste it on my tongue. This building seems like it contains less oxygen when you are gone. I struggle to concentrate in this wizened air.
You're with the boy, off to do your Christmas shopping. I wonder how you're doing, you who hate the whole shopping-thing, on this one of the few days left till the big day. I imagine you out there fighting the throngs of fellow procrastinators, my hero in grey. You're both out there on my behalf, and the thought of it is touching.
You've been so sick for the last week and a half. I wonder if you know how much it tears at my heart, to see you feel so punky. The night I spent on the couch nearly killed us. The next night I knew how little you slept; I laid awake most of those hours listening to you breathe, feeling the heat come off your body there next to mine.
And then we thought we had it licked. You felt better. We went in for that routine blood test only to have them get all upset. I knew from the doctor's face that they were sending us right over to the hospital. I waited in the radiology waiting room while you had your CT scan, my brand new book upside down forgotten on the floor. Were you all right? Was God even listening? And then when the on-call doctor came in on his day off to see you, I knew they wanted to keep you. Frantic while you talked to him I must have paced a hole in that waiting room floor. When he gave us the choice whether to have you admitted for the night or to come back for more tests in the morning, I knew what you would choose. Oh, you were coming home with me!
That night you slept in my arms as I breathed you. And over and over again the movie played in my head: how there was hurt, and pain, and fear, and then there was nothing... and then, by some miracle, there was you. And in this short year I can barely remember a time when there was no you. My joy, my treasure, my beloved, my B.
We went back for the lab tests the next morning after a long and leisurely breakfast, just the two of us, with the snow and the Sunday paper, over coffee. We went back prepared for the news, that the white count would still be dangerously high, that they didn't know why you were ill, that they were admitting you to the hospital.
And miracle of miracles: the lab results were back to normal! The doctors baffled, but pleased. Praise the Lord...
Today you're out doing the things you meant to do two weeks ago, and I'm so very thankful that you feel well enough to do them. Not because of the task, but because of YOU. Because you were my gift last Christmas, my gift this Christmas, and for every year to come. I want nothing else but you, B. You are my comfort and my joy.
How great and wonderful is this life!
May everyone's lives be blessed, this Christmas season, and all year round.
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