a bit of gratitude // day 7
In your darkest moments, who have you been grateful for?
In my darkest moments, the support and love of my family, especially my husband, became my beacon of hope. Reflecting on a challenging time in my life, I realize the depth of my gratitude for them.
One such time was when illness struck me unexpectedly while living in Santa Cruz, CA. The memories of my pain are blurred, yet my husband's role during that period remains clear and vital in my mind. He called my job after a few weeks to tell them I had to stop working. He called our parents to ask them to fly across the country and care for our son. He gave our pets up for adoption, a memory that still makes him sad. He continued to work rearranging his schedule, his goals, his dreams.
I recall a particularly harrowing night, pain overwhelming me more than childbirth ever did. As I writhed in agony on our bedroom floor, my husband, promptly called for an ambulance, a scene that repeated several times during this time period. Hospital stays are mostly a haze of tests, IVs, and the fear of being dismissed as an attention-seeking patient. Or maybe that last one was just my fear? But the constant through it all was the worry in my husband's eyes, a silent testament to his concern.
When extreme abdominal pain and nausea confined me to our sofa, it was he who shouldered the responsibilities of both parents. It was then, more than a month in, that a crucial decision was made - to seek a second medical opinion and reduce the reliance on our parents' intermittent visits.
In what seemed like our darkest hour, my husband and father undertook the Herculean task of moving our lives across the country. I have scant memories of their discussions working together to box up and carefully pack all our belongings. I can still see us leaving our little yellow house on the California coast, my heart heavy with the weight of regret, but the inability to do anything about it. My only clear memory is of boarding a plane to Atlanta with my mother and son and worrying that I might not make it across the country ever again.
This period of intense stress, marked by a demanding job at a hospital undergoing tumultuous changes, the death of my grandmother, and the challenges of new motherhood, culminated in a physical manifestation of pain. This was the only clear diagnosis I ever received, but it has taken me years to acknowledge that such pain could be brought on by stress alone. Through it all, the person who steadfastly held our family together was my husband. His actions, often louder than words, carried us through, and for that, I owe him an unspoken debt of gratitude. He checked the box “in sickness and in health,” and for that I am eternally grateful.
@garyschapman
