Open-heart surgery

Hi Marty!  It seems like it has been ages since I’ve had a chance to sit down and write what is on my mind.  Part of that is the busyness of the season and part of it is that so much is going on it is hard to choose!  So I sat with it for a bit today and took a look at what is most up for me to see if I could find a nugget.  And there it was – staring me right in the face.

I heard yesterday that a friend of mine, Tarzan, (and yes, he calls me Jane), took himself to the hospital because he suspected he was suffering a heart attack.  His instincts were right, he was on the verge, and today he underwent a quintuple bypass and is now just coming out of his 6-hour ordeal.  I am so glad he heeded his body’s message.

This also ties in with another realm of my life – that of approaching my third Christmas without my younger son.  Although it doesn’t get any easier with time, it does change.  And I am noticing what that change is for me.  I hope that my other son and his Dad can have some of this too.

Rather than shutting down, or closing off my heart to ward off the pain of sitting around the Christmas dinner table where there is one less chair, I have learned to open my heart to the possibility of experiencing his presence in a very real and wholesome way.  I have found that it is through that opening that I can move through that awful ache to that oft-described place of “a peace that surpasses all understanding”.  It is only through a willingness to fully embrace whatever sadness is in there that I can also experience joy.  The only difference between me and Tarzan is that my open-heart surgery is not a bypass but rather a direct route.  What is similar is that we can both be healthier for it.

I know that Tarzan himself had a very close relationship with my son – they were hunting buddies.  I know that Dunc is keeping an eye on him and giving him a helping hand. I know that I want to have this Christmas with an open heart. 

P.S. Do you remember that time we went to Dunc's bench and I told you that a mosquito would show up (as he always does when I go there)?  And then later, when we sat in the lounge at the Whistler Chateau and I was upset, and that little mosquito flew in and landed on my heart.  Well, yesterday, just before I went into the worship service where I was going to be singing, a little mosquito flew over my head as if to say, “It’s going to be great, Mom.” And it was.  And the picture for this post?  A mosquito's ECG.