living in gratitude©
I’ve been ill for a week, so I did what many partners do — I gave my cold to my husband.
This wouldn’t have been so bad, except that he had dental surgery too. Painful surgery.
So, just when I began to recover from my aches and raspy throat and all the rest, I layered all that on top of his post-surgery misery.
We haven’t been suffering in silence.
We took turns groaning and sniffling and auditioning for cold medicine commercials. We invested in more Kleenex than ever before; we learned about (another) Tylenol recall.
But we’ve also been doing what best friends do for each other in illness — we motivate each other to get outdoors, just to walk in the sunshine. (God bless Southern Oregon!) Scouting for new daffodils, narcissus and other spring blooms is always uplifting.
We read aloud. We’ve been finding new music to lift our spirits. We’ve been laughing through Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and silly movies.
We’ve been making a different homemade soup every day. We’re not great in the kitchen together (Hadi is the chef; I muddle). Yet it’s wonderful what ginger and carrot soup can do for a marriage during shared illness.
And lentil-quinoa, tomato-vegetable, black bean, and, on the worst days, just clear, mushroom broth.
Now that I’m feeling better, I’m saying my gratitudes all day long for love, in sickness and in health.
Oh my dear, you have now entered the sister/brotherhood of the 2013 miseries. Your creativity served you well when your body didn’t. And what a blessing to have a partner – even sick – to be creative, to inspire each other to compete in the snot and cough Olympics. Hope you’re now on the final stretch and there are no rebounds in sight.
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ha! thanks. I believe we’re in the final stretch.