1/23/2018

Hey friends and family,

         Dad is getting better. Oh-so-slowly…but it is happening. Its like watching a plant sprout from a seed, you can’t see anything happening, but you know that just below the surface a miracle is taking place. Mom goes to the hospital every day. She sits next to him, and just watches him sleep. Me and the little boys don’t usually go to the hospital every day, but when we do, we sit in the waiting room and feel close to dad. Mom is usually reluctant to let us go because of all the germs in the waiting areas. “Only one person in the hospital at a time!” she says. And so, we wait at home, for news of daddy feeling better, waiting for him to wake up. And we wait...for so long. 16 days in counting today. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s the longest we have ever gone without him!

Dads oxygen fluctuates, and sometimes it is better than other times. The times that it is better, though, even though I want to hope, I am afraid. Its like walking on a thin layer of ice. You take a step and it doesn’t break and you want to celebrate, but there are still so many more steps to go, and if you did celebrate the odds of the ice breaking are even larger.

Hope is a tricky thing. Everyone always says, ‘think positive,’ or, ‘have hope!’ But hope is flighty, and oh so breakable. If you hope for something, and get your expectations up, and they don’t come true, its so far to fall. Being a realist, I have to say that keeping realistic expectations is better, and truly a must. Its like making a decision based on solid facts. If its cloudy, I can hope the sun will come out, but chances are its going to rain, so I am taking my umbrella. If I keep realistic expectations, when my hopes are dashed, it doesn’t hurt as much. And alternatively, when my hopes are realized, it is that much sweeter. Maybe I’m an old cynic, maybe my fear is ungrounded, and we should all love deeply and allow ourselves to hope fully. But I am afraid. Afraid of the pain of rejection, unrequited love and loss.  Afraid of the scars that will come as a result.

Am I missing out though? By not allowing myself to hope and to love, am I shutting myself off–creating an armor around my heart, impenetrable by even the sharpest of arrows.            Is it bad to shy away from pain? Or is pain what makes love stronger? Does fear make love less? Does love melt away fear? Someone once said, “Better to love than not to have loved at all…” I think they must be right. Love is pain and fear, and pain and fear are love. They cannot be without the other. And the scars that come as a result are marks of a true warrior, and proof that I have lived; and lived fully.

“It matters not who you love,

Where you love, why you love,

When you love, or how you love,

It matters only that you love.”

John Lennon