February 2011
we tend to dislike those who don’t wash their hands.
January 2011
We heard our tea kettle squeal for the first time tonight. It was surprisingly cute.
I just had my nose swabbed. I have never had anything stuck so far up my nose.
The frustrations of sleeplessness overtake me due largely in part to the shape distortion of my spine and having to be on my feet for the day at work. The pain crept in early on, not by choice, but what could I do? Now I’m left to suffer the consequences with a sleepless night complete with tossing and turning while my mind painfully keeps me hard at work running teller transactions throughout the night. Joy, where have you gone?
As my frustrations become unbearable I crawl out of bed in tears to warm a handmade heating pad to place under my lower back. My husbands wakes up. Like he has always done, he begins to offer comfort. He urges that I take medicine, sleep on his side of the bed and use his pillow. He prayed for me. I wept quietly. It’s a moment too intimate for words.
As I try to find a comfortable spot in my new awkward position, my mind takes me yet another place. It’s the little things that trigger an unsettling memory of my Nenaw. The place I am taken is back to her bedroom only a few months ago as she suffered through her last days. I am reminded because of nothing other than the heating pad on which I now rest my aching body. A similar heating/cooling pad was placed on and around her aching body as she was taking her last breaths. I find it best not to visit this place in my thoughts, though, I suppose it to be healthy on occasion.
I become ridiculous at four in the morning. Sleep, won’t you find me?
“May we find peace in the places to which you have called us.”
—Common Prayer
