Six months later and I’m learning about gratitude.
It’s always a lesson I scoffed at as if it wasn’t important.
It seemed too simple, too childlike, too inapplicable.
Six months ago I walked out of the ICU to get a bagel and some coffee.
Another bad night of sleep against a window, hoping the new day would bring some good news.
I ate and returned, and sat wearily on the chair, scrolling through houses, and then as soon as I found one I thought would work, that godforsaken alarm started again, but this one was different, louder, unceasing, the numbers went to zero, and I quietly filed out of my chair in the corner to the hallway fearing but knowing what that all meant.
Six months later and I’m pacing the house, a house that hasn’t seen you for six months, because there’s nowhere else to go. Everyone has to stay home, and there’s a great fear that many families will have to face a similar experience: a loved one hooked up to a ventilator in the ICU slipping away in 36 hours.
I can’t sleep. I hate this. The house is quiet and feels empty. Since it was built, this house – and I – have never spent this long without you and we both heave belabored sighs.
I’m irritable at the constant reminders. The previous order is gone, and there’s a thin layer of dust over everything.
When you lose someone, you gain all their abandoned organization projects, the good silverware, the amalgamated junk drawer, the half-used bottles of shampoo. The everyday items and the special items are the most heartbreaking, they represent the dual spectrum of the constant and the celebratory. All things you miss without the person.
I’m sitting through all of this wondering what I have to be grateful for – a mess? An echo of low-grade irritability that flares from room to room? Being trapped literally, figuratively, and now by government order?
I’m grateful you don’t have to see all this. I’m grateful you don’t have to worry about getting sick during this mess.
I’m grateful you don’t have to watch news get worse.
I’m grateful you left me with these wonderful things.
I’m grateful for all the happy memories I have here.
I’m grateful there is a here – a place – a home – my childhood home – a familiar building to go to when nothing makes sense.
I’m grateful there’s someone I love here to share it with and look after me.
I’m grateful I have enough and I’m not for want.
I’m grateful for this breath, and the last.
I’m grateful I had the best mother in the world, and nothing can take that away from me.