Mom called; I hadn’t posted yet today and she was concerned that I was doing okay. (Yeah, Mom, I’m outing you, sorry.) Message heard! Alive and posting! Heh.
I wanted to go to Purlescence’s Knit Night last night, to the point that I deliberately kind of backed myself into it by calling them and saying I hoped to, and that if anyone happened to show up sick could they let me know so I could stay away?
When they heard my voice on the phone–actually, I had to identify myself, my voice is still raspy from that NG tube–the whole yarn store sent up a cheer.
That did it. I was going.
But by 7:30 I was also popping a hydrocodone to get me through it, and I avoid those and almost never take them till bedtime. Oh well. I needed it. My daughter, who I’ll call here by her nickname of Sam even though I obnoxiously still call her by her real name in person, did the driving.
We were about two blocks from home when she offered to turn around. I considered, and then said, no, let’s just go. And go we did.
I stumbled in that yarn store door and into the arms and tears of my friends. There were quite a few tears of mine going, too. And then–
You remember Mary? The one who made it so I could take back the shawl in the window and ship it to the woman whose husband had a brain tumor?
She handed me a circular lace shawl, warm enough for a lap robe as needed, absolutely exquisite. I was blown away. Later, home again, I laid it out across the top of the couch so it would again make my day this morning when I came out and saw it, and it did. It’s gorgeous. It’s Mary. It’s love made tangible.
Mary had lately had a project with a deadline, and she told me this other project–my shawl–nevertheless kept insisting it must go first. She couldn’t make herself get going on the deadline one till this other demanding one was satisfied and done; it just insisted it of her. And I was stunned. And stunned that she must have gotten it done so fast. Stunned that I’d felt I needed to go that night, whether I was up to it or not, and here the shawl was and here she was and here I was and wow.
Now, Mary, I want to tell you the outcome of that and of seeing and hugging all of you. I went home with a sense of lightness that had been too long missing. That was the first time in two months I had been in any building or room that was not my home, Stanford Hospital, or my medical clinic (and almost exclusively Urgent Care there). Now I had been among friends. I had taken a risk, I had stepped out to see if my body could handle an outing, and I had been treasured and loved and wrapped in comfort.
Last night, for the first time in two months, I was able to roll over in bed. By myself. All the way from one side to the other. This sounds silly, but I can’t tell you how huge it was. I felt like I had crossed some invisible line: invalid, that side. Starting to not be an invalid, that side. And I was there.
The silly thing is I can’t find my camera nor can I find the one Kelli gifted me with a few days before I went into the hospital–I feel like Rip Van Winkle here. They’re there somewhere, right in plain sight somewhere.
But Mom, that’s why I hadn’t posted yet. I have this exquisite shawl I want to show off and no pictures!
Yet.