I sit watching the monitor for every slight change of heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen rate. It passes through my mind that I would choose different colors for this place – the walls, the chairs, the machines, most definitely the drapes. But then I come back to my senses.
My brother Jay is fighting for his life in a Boston intensive care unit.
It came out of nowhere, this horrible thing that they now call ARDS of an unknown origin. One day he had a cough, the next he was in ICU on a ventilator where he has now been for three weeks and where he remains. They did not expect him to live 48 hours, so the fact that he is here is – though still critical – is literally a miracle.
The details are neither necessary or appropriate – this is not the place. But as I change the cool rag on Jay’s face, I think deeply about who he is. A brilliant man – to use the word genius is no overstatement. He’s the kind that only does the hard New York Times crossword puzzles at the end of the week. The first book I pick up on his shelf in the room where I sleep is by Kandinsky – Concerning The Spiritual in Art , which I read some time ago, but am enjoying re-reading late at night.
He also loves the sea and his home is filled with model sailing ships and pictures of ships, plants and seashells. He’s an amazing cook and has a collection of hot peppers like I’ve never seen. He’s a Texan, of course and you can take the boy out of Texas and all that…
He’s also a professional musician – a french horn player with the Boston Symphony Orchestra – a town that actually supports the arts. He’s also a keyboardist, a composer, a writer, a singer. There’s so much more and his friends and family could go on and on, but you get the point.
Most importantly I think of how deeply he is loved by his sister and brother in Texas who dropped everything to run to his side. His sister, Kathy – well there are no words to describe her loving actions and what I’ve watched her do. Ken came as soon as he could and stayed as long as he could, but had to tearfully drive home yesterday morning. The nurse tells us Jay’s heart monitor jumped 20 points as they were trying to say goodbye – but of course, we saw that. He’ll be back, of course.
I think of all this as I watch Jay’s monitors, watching his every wince and expression of pain, and praying not only for survival – that is not enough. But for complete recovery in the painful and traumatic months of acute rehab ahead of him once he is well enough to leave ICU.
Oh – and my own beloved father was life-flighted last weekend. I won’t go into those details either but long story short, it was a blood clot. He was on the floor not breathing and we thought we had lost him. My own brother Kevin, who qualifies for sainthood in my book, texts me daily to assure me that he is doing great. Dad’s home and cooked a great turkey meal for everyone for Sunday dinner, And if I know my dad, there was a little Irish jig involved. My hero.
Of course, all of this leaves me thinking of what matters and what doesn’t. I feel like I don’t know much anymore. I used to have so many answers and now I only have one: God is love and our only safe place is in that Love.
I know that God loves Jay with a love I cannot begin to comprehend with my breaking, and sometime sobbing heart. I know that He loves my family members that are bravely coping with so much stress and loss ( no, I have not told the whole story of all that is going on:) – with a love beyond words. I silently fall back into that Love this morning, floating there as if in a sea that is neither calm nor warm, but definitely safe and familiar and real.
And then, before I close my computer to head back to the hospital this morning I stop to pray over the children that cover the wallpaper on my computer. I stop to look at the latest photos out of the Mikea Forest where I will be heading in July – children so happy to be in school, so many of them are merely skeletons with smiles. And I sink deeper and deeper into the love of God. This love that is deeper than illness, than grief, than poverty, than suffering. The only thing worth clinging to in this unforgiving, unpredictably yet still terribly beautiful world.
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