The Home and The Heart, part I

 (I will be writing a series of essays on something that transpired in 2021.  This is the first chapter.)

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;

Chapter 1 

The Last Supper

It was 6pm.  She was all wired up and the instruments were beeping incessantly.  The surgeons were gathered around the bed.  The team of anesthesiologists was taking notes.  They would probably use Fentanyl, or would they use Propofol?  She was overcome with fear and foreboding.  As my beloved lay inclined on that bed, trusting me with her life, I explained her condition and her history to the dispassionate professionals.  They nodded, looked at each other, and tapped on their devices.  They did not look at her.

It was the time of Covid, and the room was intolerable with the noise of a large industrial "negative pressure" turbine placed in the room.  I had asked, and it could not be turned off.

She was a hair’s breadth away from heart failure, and her ashen face was resigned.  After rebelling for days against the re-opening of her body – she had had a prior open-heart surgery ten years ago – that afternoon she had finally fallen to my reason and persuasion, as everyone told her and me that that was the only way to save her life.  The hospital professionals had said that any further delay would be “devastating”.  We could not wait any longer.  The surgical teams were looking at her with disguised concern.  It was going to be very risky to cut open her heart again, but the risks of not doing so were greater.

I was handed the surgical consent form to sign.  I scribbled my signature on it.  It was a quiet, cursory act.  Little could anyone know then what reverberations, what thunderstorms that quiet scribble had set in motion.  The die had been cast.

The tears had dried on her face.  Her breath was more labored than ever.  Not knowing of her critical condition, she had been served a meal at eleven, and she had taken a few nibbles.  This fact was not unknown to the doctors as they were preparing for the operation.  A surgical patient should have an empty stomach.  But this was deemed an emergency.

The doctors, in their worry, finally decided to give her another twelve hours.  The risks were already formidable, and they balked at this additional risk.  She had not had a proper meal in over a day now – the hospital food was not palatable to her, and she had no appetite.  But as the operation was postponed to the morning, she could now eat.  Theoretically, it was now allowed.  But it was 8pm and the hospital kitchens had closed. 

I ran to the cafeteria to see if they had anything.  They were almost closed for the day.  All the "good" food was gone.  All that they had was some awful looking vegetarian lasagna and packaged potato chips.  I bought both.  They had one piece left of a brownie cake and I bought that too.  

I brought her this barely edible lukewarm "food" in the take-away Styrofoam container.  I wanted her to have something, even if it was just empty calories.  She did not like the lasagna at all, as it had some spinach leaves and her fear of green leafy vegetables and what they could do to her already failed mechanical heart valve overwhelmed her.  I separated the spinach from the cheesy portions and made her eat a little.  Seeing that she was forcing herself against her will, I offered her the brownie which she, thankfully, liked.

But she knew that I hadn’t eaten as well.  And on that last evening of her lucidity, with a mind trembling with fear and faded with exhaustion and breathlessness, she implored me to please eat as well.  I was so moved by her kindness and concern for me that I had lumps in my throat.  I could not eat, I felt, even if I was hungry.  But she insisted, and I shared the rest of the cake with her.

As I took a morsel of that cake, I found it indelibly delicious not because of anything in it, but because I knew that another portion of it was giving some life-energy to my wife.

I was heartbroken that I could not offer her something better to eat at what could quite possibly be the last meal of her life.  The hallways of the CVICU, as it was called, were now darkened, and the new shift of night nurses had arrived.  I was respectfully asked to leave.  I told the light of my life that I would be back before sunrise, as she was set to be sawed open at 7am the next day.

I bid her good night, and drove back home with a stone over my heart, and broke down as I sat down in our living room.  Would her eyes ever see this room again?  Would her slender form ever again sit on this sofa?

…

We love the highest in another human being.  The frailties, the flaws, the foibles are of little import because our love is for that light within the other, and for the union of that light with ours.

It is a mistake to think that love makes us weak.  It is quite the opposite, I realize now.  The power of love is not diminished because it includes tears and heartache.  These trials and pains burnish the heart, and make it crystalline with power and strength.  A man with love in his life can do things that others deem impossible.  Is that weakness?  Love for an idea, for justice, for a mountain peak, or for another human being, is what causes man to transcend his humanity and achieve heroism.

 (to be continued)