Together

How good it was to listen to the doctor’s
Detailed overview of all that she had done
Because she’d started the conversation with
“Everything went fine.”
How good it was to wait that extra 30 minutes
While someone sleepy slowly woke up and nurses
Did their nursing on the sun who lights my sky.
How good it was to see her once again,
Groggy but awake and eating Saltines,
Because there she sat alive, awake, and talking.
How good it was to walk the snakelike halls
In search of the sign marked Pharmacy
Because God graced humanity with super-
Natural ability to create drugs to fight our pain.
How good it was to help her dress
And lace up her snow boots for her
Because that meant just as we’d walked in together,
So, too, we’d both walk out. Together.
How good it was to clear the Minnesotan snow
From off my buried, borrowed car
Because it meant that we were going home. Together.
How good it was to finally park and help her
Over growing snow banks and up the stairs
Because that meant we’d made it back
To where we’d started out that morning.
How good it was to bring her water and a slice of ham
Because she was hungry and her body was already
Going to work fixing the holes the doctor made
To look inside and take what needed to be taken.
How good it was to sit outside her room while she slept,
Knowing that the woman in the room next door
Was no figment of my imagination but real,
Grace with a face and hands and a heart.
How good it was to write the news
That all went well and God has given us
Yet one more day to live. And not alone. Together.
And now, at such a day’s approaching end,
How good it is to listen to her breaths
While I sit on a chair next to her bed.
She stirs, rolls over, and all I can think
Is “Thank you, Father, for another gift,
Another day, that you have not forsaken us.”
And how good it is to nod off, lines unfinished,
Wondering if I’ll ever return to these words,
Because I know that even if I don’t
And these words never bend their will to mine,
The feeling behind them is real and lives on,
And I’m thankful for all I have, and I stand
In wonder. Together. Another day.