Waiting

How does one write about waiting for news of the death of one's father?

Waiting on the couch for that phone call, knitting all the while waiting for my own new medications to make their mark on this strange new body-predicament... It strikes me that this is a season of waiting in the Christian world, too, as the faithful explore the darkness of a world devoid of their divine Light; and as the Christians, so too the more Earth-worshipping wait for the light and warmth of the Sun and the promise of full-on Springtime Sowing Season. Jews wait out the Pass-Over; Muslims celebrate Al-Hijra, their New Year, awaiting the seasonal arrival of Mohammed home from Mecca to begin the community of Islam.

All the earth is a waiting room these days, it seems...

This glorious wind of balled mossy-green yarn accompanied me on my wait to board the plane, and subsequent longer wait to de-board the plane once in Utah, and the long wait afterward to help my father home from the hospital to hospice. The mountains gave good steady company too, reminding me of first hiking treks (and my first attempt at skiing) with my dear old dad all those years ago. The mountains were their typical staid selves in wearing the a-typical weather of Rocky Mountain April, changing cloud-skirts from gray to snow to warming sun in a matter of hours without complaint. I knitted and admired the mountains and did my best to weather the changing conditions in my dad's body, in my own body, in my family's collective body.

Today I am home again and still waiting, haunted by every ring of the phone, buoyed by the support of dear friends, and my tireless husband. Today a chilly rain falls on the other side of the continent while I can only guess at the weather of the bedroom, body and family lodged by the mountains west. Today I feel echoes of a warm cheek against my lips, the struggle for breath in and out of an ever-open mouth, the string of emotions that inevitably accompany these things on all sides. The quiet drill of rainfall feeds this silent, internal thunder. And I wait.

Gifts

Mother Nature, she pulled through- as promised.
And miracle of miracles, just like that, we are staying in our home after all... the relative has decided to remain in her own home, and our landlords invited us to keep on. Relief is an understatement; settled is the blessing.


I wish the same could be said for my desk, alas. But as one diagnosis goes, so goes another, as just a few weeks ago I was given my own: fibromyalgia. Once my sweet, yellow girl was given a slot among some incredible artistic company; now she is a catch-all, as medications are titrated and my mind finds a new place in this very new body of mine.


But Mother Nature? Her ways are mysterious; the promise of green pops here and there, in what I consider a springtime equivalent of sweet laughter... Not at the expense of a winter hard won, but of something more tender, like altogether giggling at the gift of this mad, indefinable allofit.