Thursday, April 16, 2009

This morning

This morning I will awake before dawn to quietly shower and dress. I will shower and brush my teeth and choose my clothes in the dark, not wanting to wake my husband until the last possible moment.
I will wake him finally to his own morning ablutions, while I stir our children and try to get them into shoes and coats.
I will let them leave the house in their jammies, something I only do on these mornings. It is a comfort to me to leave them so, like grumpy little people from a Norman Rockwell painting and know that three parts of my world are safe and well.
I will leave them with my mother, knowing she will feed them and care for them while I cannot. Knowing that they are the second safest place in the world.
I will compartmentalize my life, my emotions, and who I am. I will set aside the parts I know are handled or momentarily unimportant and I will devote myself to my husband.
It's the only time he ever gets that sort of attention from me
And, once more, I will bargain with the Universe.
"Please, let him be all right. Please let it go well. Please hold him safe until I can take over again. Please don't take him from me, from our babies. If you have to take someone, take me instead."
It's the same every time. As though I could stop him from leaving me by a trade. As though anesthetic complications could transfer to me. Leaving him whole with our children.
And I always wonder how many times my mother said a similar prayer, watching them wheel my father into surgery, knowing her children were with her parents, safe, whole, and cared for. And wondering if they would ever see their father again.
Although not major surgery, I still offer myself in trade every time. Because, although I know The Man would disagree, the world would be better with him in it. And our children would have the better parent.
And I wouldn't be alone.
This time I will add a request that this be the last surgery, the last trip, the last morning like this. That our family be allowed to stop running in circles and finally allowed to step off this treadmill we've been on and rejoin the real world.
It's well past time for us to step into the light of day, squinting and fearful, and to resume lives we left behind almost a year ago when The Man was hurt.
We have survived. We will survive. Once this surgery is over. Once he's fine and can hold our babies once more. Once the pain is behind us.
So we will step forward this morning, once more into the fray, and wait for the results, praying for good news, fearing bad.
We will do it because we have no choice.
And I will hold tight to everything and everyone I have, clenched fist and white knuckled.
Because only then do I feel confident he will come back to me.
Only then.
This morning.

2 comments:

olive said...

Hi,
I follow your blog , not very regularly , but i do visit sometimes.
I'm the one thats left some comments before as well..
Just wanted to wish you and your husband the best of luck!
Hope he gets better soon , and you dont have to go through this again!

Anonymous said...

All my blessings to you and your family. May you pull through this LAST surgery stronger, healthier and peaceful. Thia