So…Bruce is home. It’s been a week now and he’s doing well. Thank you everyone for carrying us, it means the world.
As expected, I picked him up at the curb, a couple of plastic bags holding his clothes and various pieces of support equipment and yes, a stack of papers with instructions.
No one gets out of a hospital without instructions!
10 days of no hugs, hand holding or kisses. Our only communication texts and FaceTime. Procedures and tests were performed. IV’s, injections, isolation, his heart re-plumed, all by himself. No visits from his children, spouse, pastors, friends or relatives.
I had the easier job. I kept busy, sewing, painting, caring for animals, slept in my own bed. I worried, he was always on my mind. At times it felt like a long business trip.
I managed the communications hub. Kept the social media posts fed and answered text messages and emails. I updated the groups we serve at church. And I listened and agreed while people prayed with me over the phone. We have a live in young adult.
I wasn’t alone
Maggy our diligently protective Cairn Terrier, caught a rat one day. She hauled it up the stairs, laying it at the back door, the spoils of her triumphant hunt. Her canine DNA demands that she hunt and kill, but it’s something I’d rather know in the abstract. I caved. Too squeamish to scoop it up I called my neighbor thinking she’d send her husband to the rescue. My sexist heritage lives. He was away so she did the honors.
I will be forever grateful
Mother’s Day was a 3 way zoom call invite from my youngest (her MIL joined in). She taught me Tunisian Crochet. I loved it. I’m touched that she thought it up and that we have the ability to make it happen. A voice call from my oldest on her way to work and a poem from our resident YA…
I was well honored
I’m turning 61 today, last year my husband threw me a big (not) surprise birthday party. I loved it. If I was born in 1960 I wouldn’t be able to have that party. My youngest daughter is turning 30 on the 27th. She just cancelled her birthday entirely saying she’ll have it next year, 30 is worth a celebration. It would have been fun, we were going to wear PJ’s and eat breakfast cereal.
My oldest daughter and her husband purchased a new home in a city 3 hours closer to us. I’m ready to visit her, but Illinois residents are frowned on in Ohio. Additionally she’s a NICU nurse – higher precautions. We are higher risk because of age (and now heart disease).
So we stay home
I’m tired of this quarantine, pandemic, Covid19, mask wearing life. I’ve sorted all my cupboards. Painted half my house. Sewn masks, started and finished projects. Stocked my pantry and fridge. I’ve forgotten how life was and I’ve no idea how it will be.
There is only today
When quarantine started, we marshaled ourselves to endure it with humor and faith. Today, it’s too real and too long. I have questions for what we face once this ends. Will there be work? How will the collective bills get paid? How will people come back from it? Will it happen again? Will I ever be able to see someone’s entire face? Or not fear bumping into them when I shop and not feel I have to walk across the street to practice social distance?
Will I ever be able to worship next to someone sitting near me?
The Church is an organic body of people collectively worshipping God. And I long to be back where that happens. To give and receive hugs.
I miss it the most
I don’t need a pandemic to teach me how to depend on God. I’ve walked with him for 51 years. I’ve depended on him most of my life. I’m not going to stop because of a world health crisis.
I want this to be over
I know that God has a plan for humankind and will see it to completion, whatever that looks like. I also know the world will survive, people will overcome, reinvent themselves, create new vocations, find their way through. I refuse the multiple conspiracy theories out there. It’s a bad witness to be a Christian spreading rumors let alone outright lies. I won’t do it.
I’m done with quarantine
This is old
And I really, really need a haircut…
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