Instead of the usual burning ritual, this year's greeting of the new year will consist of quiet meditation against fear, gratitude, prayer and a focus on hope.
As I write this I am sitting, and feeling quite fatigued, in an ICU room as my honey lies in a hospital bed hoping that modern medicine can help heal his damaged lungs. He came down with the flu just over two weeks ago, which turned into pneumonia and is now Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). He has been intubated since Christmas night. There is no prognosis.
I am quite frightened; sometimes the fear is more evident than others. I sit vigil and hope that tonight's nurse is not so intimidated and irritated by me that she doesn't miss a crucial clue that will pull him away from the path of healing. I watch my friend Andrea keep Joe centered as she sits with him calming his occasional leg thrashing, her husband Kevin at my side ready to hold my hand and nod as I share yet another story related to our trauma. I feel so much gratitude to these two, and the dozens of family and friends who have stepped forward to offer support. The gratitude is so big that it grows closer and closer to guilt. How can we possibly be worthy of what we have received and will receive?
Despite the above remark about tonight's nurse, I have been quite pleased with the level of care that we have encountered here. The attention to detail, communication and level of professionalism is the highest I have ever experienced. Given my usually negative attitude towards western medicine, this is high praise.
In the twenty-four years that we have been married, we have only spent one midnight apart. It was a foolish and misguided choice that created a short, temporary distance one New Year's Eve; one that I am loath to repeat. So despite the fact that I didn't manage to get a nap in today, I am here with him tonight watching the clock move closer to midnight and 2014. I am here with him, even if he is not necessarily aware of it.
Last New Year's Even found us in our usual spot: on our back porch with the fire pit writing on pieces of wood about those things we wanted to burn away, then writing about those things we wanted to manifest in the new year. Burning out the old, burning in the new. It's a spare-the-air day tonight anyway, so we couldn't burn even if we were home.
I will likely try to find a substitute ritual tomorrow, but in the meantime, the focus is on hope and recovery. Love and support. New beginnings and
changes.
Happy New Year.
