Stayed home from the job today, on doctor's orders. Tried to convince myself that it was just going to be a make-up day for the work I would've done over the weekend had I not been in the hospital.
By noon, I was toast. Daughter and I had to run to the store for a few groceries, and after that I came home and collapsed for three hours.
Nope. I actually needed to recover today.
When I'm at the doctor's office, or even in the hospital, I am a very gracious client, as a Christian would be expected to be.
A patient patient.
The lengthy delay in getting me into the CT surgery Saturday morning - make that afternoon make that evening - was greeted with equanimity and aplomb. And it wasn't an act: I knew God had me in there for a reason, and I even suspect learning some patience was an element of that. I was a very good boy.
Once I got home, however, I did the same thing I did after three weeks of recuperation post-gallbladder removal in August: Alright, done! Back to work!
And that was the wrong answer both times.
I was told originally it would be 6-8 weeks before I could really resume normal activities, and friends said it was more like 3-4 months.
Yet there I was, four weeks after surgery, first day of school, and my day looked just like it had a year before. "I'm fine now! I did my time, so now I can do what I need to do!"
Yeah. About that...
It doesn't work that way, with surgery or with anything in life. We don't heal for a prescribed amount of time, and then CLICK! Back to normal! We don't grieve for a certain length of time, we don't recover from trauma in a set period, we don't do anything exactly according to any plan except GOD'S.
There is no precise "finish line" for recovery. There is never a date in which we can say, Well, that's over with and might as well never have happened.
My wife left me and the children almost eight years ago. Since then, my childhood sweetheart and I reunited and got married, a much more complete and loving marriage than the first one was anyway. Do you think that means I don't still wonder, once in awhile, what I could have done differently? Or that it didn't change me in ways that would never revert completely to who I was before she left?
I could make the same argument with the death of my second wife three years ago. I'm now with an amazing woman who is everything I could possibly ask for in a partner, especially given my general health and outlook on life at this age and stage. We're planning our married lives, have a ring picked out, developing our plans for what house we'll live in and such. She slept in the hospital room, in the chair next to me, every night I was there both stays this year. And yet, should anyone be surprised that I still wonder why Melissa had to die at such a young age, or what I could have done to prevent it? Should anyone argue to me that I just need to "get over her" and move on? I have "gotten over her" in the sense that I could "move on", but that heartache will always be there.
I lost my mother to cancer 32 years ago! Should I have simply "forgotten about her by now"? No more than I should forget my father, 25 years gone, or my son, 17 years dead. By the same token, I can't stop my life because of any of these traumas, nor would my mother, father, son, or late wife want me too.
And I can't assume that this wounded belly will simply stop affecting me and I can be completely "normal" again tomorrow, or the next day, or on any particular day. There will come a day when I may lay down to sleep and realize that I hadn't felt a twinge from my side all day. But like the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, we won't know when that day is coming until its arrival.
So, I need to continue to be careful - push forward slowly and yet don't remain stagnant. Recovery, like life, is not going to be a steady line but ragged and jagged, some days a notable improvement and other days an apparent set-back. But that day, like That Day, will come, and probably when we least expect it.
No comments:
Post a Comment