Close to the bone

We got up before dawn today to begin July in a fluttery cave of hairnets and booties, needles and nerves, and sterile everything.

It was a day labeled 'surgery' on the calendar. He teases the nurses, razzes the doctors and gives me his wedding ring to hold.

Sitting with all the other anxious families I hear snippets of their stories and feel little veins burst in my heart.

A wife, on the phone to her daughter: "They had to zap him to get his heart going again, but he's fine now. No, I don't know what they'll do if it happens again."

A grandmother to her sister: "We thought her last brain surgery would be it. I can't believe she has to go through this again. Those poor kids."

We are there for a procedure so routine that no overnight stay is required. There is risk, of course; there is always risk with general anesthesia, but for us there is certainty. This is nearly guaranteed to work. Tomorrow will begin a new, pain-free chapter in life for us. What will it bring for them?

I send love and prayers for grace and hope to the patients, their families, and prayers for guidance and strength to the doctors and nurses. But most of all, I send gratitude. I fill balloons with appreciation and float them to the heavens. Today, grace comes to me through a short, spiky-haired young doctor's pronouncement: "He's doing great."

"Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving." 

- Kahlil Gibran