The last time that I wrote, I talked about gratitude and the importance of appreciating the small graces that fill our lives. I have to say, those ideas have been challenged recently. My husband and I were planning a grand holiday, a luxurious trip to Southeast Asia that would return us to an area that we have not seen in three decades. We enjoyed sitting at dinner and talking about the language we remembered, testing each other’s vocabulary and recall. We talked about the foods that we had loved and the sights that we looked forward to seeing. The news about the coronavirus was daunting, but we are healthy, vigorous adults and figured we were game.
Then one evening my husband began seeing flashes of light and suddenly, without knowing it, he had stepped onto a roller coaster of ER marathons and doctor’s visits. As someone who can’t even put in eyedrops effectively, I have been amazed at his patience and fortitude, his bravery in the face of scientific tools and techniques that are equal parts incredible and terrifying. He received more daunting news today and the plans we had made for a small consolation trip were dashed as well. The roller coaster continues.
I left the poor guy, in pain, hiding behind those ridiculous plastic glasses, sitting in the car while I picked up a few groceries. I wanted to do a little something for him, so I was picking up a cup of coffee to go with a cookie I’d bought. As I pumped the carafe, a woman came to the counter, eager for her own cup of coffee. She was about to order when she spotted her husband out the window. She explained that he has Alzheimer’s and she was worried to see him standing outside of their car. The clerk pointed to seats by the window where he was welcome to sit, but the woman shook her head. He wouldn’t come in, she explained, and he had reached a stage where he’d been wearing the same clothes for three days. She hadn’t been able to get him to change so he wasn’t really presentable anyway. All she wanted was a simple cup of coffee and I thought, every day, every moment even, will become more and more difficult for her before it becomes easier.
I returned to the car, handed my husband his cup of coffee and headed home. We are so lucky, I told him, before describing the situation with the woman inside. And he agreed. We are indeed lucky, for a hopeful prognosis, for the miracles of medicine and science, for the meal and comfort that we will find at home, for the days and weeks and years of our lives that we get to share with one another. I remain grateful.
