And So

It is now 12 days since the Rapid Response team came into my hospital room. 

Yesterday was my wife’s and mine 50th Wedding Anniversary, today is our only grandson’s 2nd birthday. 

I have moments of absolute clarity, clearer than ever before mixed with swirls of fog.  The cars driving down our street are not as loud, the wind through the woods out back harmonize. 

I hate compression socks. 

Music means more, flowers mean more, the color of grass and bringing out the garbage, not so much. 

I can sit on the edge of our bed and loose 10-15 minutes to just heightened random thoughts, never move a muscle, I write more notes, watch less television, somehow, I now understand Monty Python…and Jimi not so much. 

I hate compression socks. 

My legs weigh more, my arms weigh less, sometimes I can taste the breeze, pasta is good, peas not so much. 

I’d rather drink than eat, stairs should be outlawed, sometimes I feel like an old 45rpm record, most times I function at lossless MP3 speed. 

I watch your eyes when you talk to me. 

Turns out I can be polite. 

Love is stronger, I don’t know where hate went to, I’m hoping it just gave up with me and left. 

Some of whatever it is that came for me has stayed, I’m not afraid of it, best maybe to work with it, I don’t really have a game plan, but I sort of feel a part of me was lost, I hope what takes its place is kind. 

I sometimes hear you, I sometimes see your faces, I take that to be the definition of comfort. 

I’ve gained more than I lost. 

It is clearer to me now that at any time in my life that there will always be something that will come for us no matter if it be today, tomorrow or a thousand years from now. 

May we be ready, and may we protect each other as you did for me and so many other folks. 

And may compression socks be banned. 

db

“And in the end, the love you take

is equal to the love you make.”

The End

The

Beatles

don.barone@gmail.com

PO Box 892

Farmington, CT. 06032