Shabbat

The sign in the elevator this morning reminded me that this evening is the start of Jewish Shabbat (Sabbath); for that, one elevator in this building stops at every floor for 24 hours, so that those observing Shabbat do not have to push the buttons and interrupt their worship. What a gift, to have an entire day set aside for worship and reflection, prayer and slowness.

I write from the Cardiac ICU (CICU, which our friends who have been here before endearingly call the Kick-You). Strangely, I do not feel "kicked" at all here. Instead, I am re-discovering the Shabbat calm that permeated my days here three years ago, when I lived for 2 months with Orilus on the isolation floor.

I understand that most people do not experience life-in-hopsital in this way. It is a gift and I can only be grateful for it, and receive it humbly.

My day began a few times this morning, as I was up at Moriah's bedside every 2 hours or so throughout the wee hours of morning. But when I finally got up at 6:30, it was to kiss my daughter again, to lace up my running shoes, and to walk the Fenway.

It's strange how my feet remembered the path. I walked, jogged, and ran this loop countless times in the two months I stayed with Orilus here three years ago, and the passing of that time, and all the life we've lived since, was too much for me to meditate on very long this morning. Instead, I marvelled, and put the thoughts away with a prayer of thanks. My iPod wasn't charged this morning, and this turned out to be a great gift, as I was able to pay more attention as I walked. There were familiar sights--around the next bend, the two stone buildings I remembered were still standing--and then there were surprises, things I had forgotten--the tressle of a bridge that is no longer in use--and new things to see--the rhythm of a couple jogging in perfect unison, the guy with amazingly long and beautiful curly hair, the ducks splashing in the river.

I returned to shower (on a different floor in a different building entirely, as there aren't showers on the CICU) and thought about all the hospital bathrooms in which I've showered...so many hospital stays since we adopted our boys five years ago, and that, too, was a thought too large for my heart to contain. I made my own breakfast, as Moriah's nurse for today watched me pull out my Tupperware, oatmeal, and apple and slowly realized that I knew more about hospital living than she had expected. I ate alone, in a Family Waiting Room (there is no food allowed here in Moriah's tech-savvy pod), at a round table. I greeted another mother who came to dig out her own cereal and bowl from a cabinet (the first stranger to speak to me all morning, as my "good mornings" on the Fenway were all ignored). She was strangely excited about the Harry Potter movie on television, and surfed the channels until she found it, turning up the volume to an unusually loud level. I was amused. The janitor came in to empty the trash. The mother left. The mother's husband came looking for her. I turned the TV off so I could finish my coffee, read another chapter of a book on spiritual living, and journaled in silence.

Meanwhile, Moriah was here, getting tubes pulled out of her body, the nurses preferring me to leave them to their work. So far, she's lost her catheter, a direct line to her atrium, and a chest tube for draining blood. The goal of today is to take out her breathing tube; we had thought this might even happen overnight, but she did not wake enough, and her lungs were too wet. So we wait today, and I feel my mind, body, and heart return to the all-too-familiar rhythm of slow hospital living. A Shabbat. A mindfulness I struggle without much success to maintain in my usual life.

This, today, is life. To know that my daughter's heart is repaired, and healing. To welcome the possibility of a long life for her, even as I ponder what this means. Maybe it means an increased ability to take each day as it comes, to do what I can rather than trying so hard to do it all, to see life as beyond my control. Jason and I have a feeling that Moriah is going to re-orient our lives, as the boys did in so many ways when they first arrived. We welcome the learning we need to do, the growth. But for today, we are just us, sitting in blue chairs around her bedside, reading books and making each other laugh, and relaxing in the calm after an anxiety-ridden day yesterday. Today feels like a Shabbat, a much-needed rest.

As my college classmates and I used to say to one another on Fridays after a First Testament lecture, "Shabbat Shalom." May the day bring wholeness, and peace. Not just to Moriah, but to all of us who are in such great need of Holy Love.