I heart the world

I don't think I have ever used the heart emojis as much as I did this last month. The big red heart. The two pink hearts. The face sending a kiss.  And I received a lot of those same emojis back.  The take care one with several hearts around it.  And you wouldn't think it, but an electronic symbol that is smaller than my pinky finger nail can mean so much at times like these.

On my birthday my husband got a call from a doctor announcing that his father had had a stroke. He had already been in the hospital for about two months at this point due to liver problems which we were hoping would get better.  Turns out they were much more serious than we realized or we had allowed ourselves to believe.  And after not being able to properly visit him during this time (thanks again, Covid), now we learned he had suffered a stroke and that it was serious.

I went through my birthday in a bittersweet haze.  Took the kids to the woods as I had planned and my girlfriends surprised me with some cake in the afternoon.  But my heart was heavy with worry. 

Our worst fears were confirmed a few days after that when the neurology department asked us to come to the ward.  We knew they wouldn't ask us to come during Covid times if it weren't serious.  The doctor from Cameroon with a strange bedside manner explained there had been too much bleeding in the brain for his dad to ever recover.  He was now in a coma.  He would go to hospice care.  We didn't know how much time he would be with us.  

He was basically in a coma. Sleeping peacefully in his hospital bed.  Still looking tanned (but we later learned the jaundice was responsible for part of that) and pretty much like his normal self.  We held his hand and talked to him.  Something we would do for the next week on our daily hospital visits.  We brought him cut flowers so his room wouldn't be bare.  The kids made him a card that he would never see.  We told him goodbye from countless friends and relatives who passed on their messages.  

My husband talked to him about the greenhouse, this man's life's work. What was blooming, how things were selling.  I recited the names of the flowers.  Told him that his grandson and I had planted things in our garden. That his granddaughter liked succulent plants just like her Papy.

His breathing got weaker, slower, and a week after entering hospice care, he left this world for the next one to join his wife who was already keeping a place for him.  We cried a lot.  But we knew he would never suffer again.  We knew we had that opportunity, so precious, to say goodbye to him, even if he couldn't answer us.

They say you know how deep your friendship is in times like this.  I can tell you my friends and family are just gold.  They sent me text messages (my church friend even sent me twice per day at her prayer times), watched the kids so we could go to the hospital, made me lasagna, and two even came to the funeral and cheered the kids up especially by their presence.

They took time out of their own busy lives to be with us and think of us and pray for us.  And that's why I say, friends, family, I 💓 you.  So much you'll never know.  And I'm here for you if you need me to return the favor. Out of a painful situation, I have felt so much love and know how blessed I am by the people in my life.  Who knows if God listens to all those prayers we send.  But I think He put the right people around me, and for that I am forever grateful.