CHOOSE LIFE

LOVING LIFE AGAIN

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face,
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
    —Ellen Bass

Garrison Keillor expresses  this idea in his own inimitable way.

"We live in treacherous times but so did Thomas Keillor who survived the five week voyage from Yorkshire in 1774 and my ancestor Prudence Crandall who got booted out of Connecticut in 1831 for admitting young women of color to her school and so she fled to Kansas where she campaigned for women’s suffrage. She was a Methodist. I like to imagine her sitting on a porch in Kansas, writing fierce polemics against male supremacy and the racist killjoys who blight the landscape, and at the same time enjoying the music of meadowlarks and the taste of tomatoes eaten off the vine and the pleasure of shade in the midst of brilliance. To change the world, you must start out by loving it. It’s fine to march but don’t forget to dance. The Lord is gracious. Come unto his gates with thanksgiving. In other words, get over yourself. It isn’t about you. Grab the rope and pull yourself up. Try. Try again"

I GRABBED THE ROPE IN THE POST OP RECOVERY ROOM

The nurse in the recovery room which I shut down at Brigham Faulkner Hospital  where I  was the last one to leave yesterday -- said something that annoyed me at the time.
 She said "According to your  history you had SEPTIC SHOCK in June  and spent quite some time in the ICU--that is often a one way ticket.  But here  you are talking to me  and saying it is time to go home. Well to get you out of here you must stop shivering and vomiting. So relax and try to let your body  make that happen.  Cause you clearly have a body that still wants to go on.  And you should  see each day as a gift. Each day is a gift"

I wanted to say --  that feels true when you are healthy but not when you're this miserable. I didn't say it instead I worked on breathing and relaxing and they came with new and hotter blankets.  The nausea and  the shivering subsided.
An hour later I was in Maureen's car and directing her out of there and back to Pawtucket. Yes, Maureen's from the bucket too but  she has made it to Providence -- when you name a city Providence  you know Roger Williams had high hopes for it.