An unorthodox date night

In the movie Date Night, Steve Carrel and Tina Fey’s married characters had a very unorthodox date night that involved criminals, guns, and car chases.  Nothing spices up a marriage quite like an exciting date night.  The last time my other half and I had planned a date night, my mother had spent her last weekend at the hospital.  I had only planned on spending Friday night with her and had every hope of being able to attend the “Date Your Mate” event at my church.  Seemed like a good idea to spend quality time together with other Christian couples.  We’re Christians and sometimes, we do like fellowship with other Christian couples.  Sometimes, we just prefer going it solo.  As it turned out, it was not meant to be.  

Now, nearly four weeks after my mother’s death, and eight weeks since that failed date night, we had a date night of sorts last night.  After weeks of not being able to spend any quality time together, we finally got an impromptu date night because I had to take my other half into the ER and he ended up needing an emergency surgery to have his appendix removed. 

I once crashed into the back of a parked car and totaled my old car.  It was a traumatic event.  I didn’t want to drive.  The other half made me get back behind the wheel and drive until I got my confidence back.  This was a little like that.  Coming in the ER, waiting to be seen, going with him to for the catscan and then waiting for him to get out of the OR was all very surreal and familiar.  It’s strange but last night, I seemed to have retraced my footsteps through the corridors of this hospital from three years ago to three months ago.  There were things, places, and faces that were eerily familiar. 
  

I looked at him and realized how someone younger and healthy looks going through the same processes my mother went through.  They put in an IV, gave him saline solutions, medications, before taking him into the OR.  They did the same thing.  I stood beside his bed and remembered the spot where I was standing with my father when the doctor had first named her cancer.  I remembered the corner where her bed had stood when they brought her out of the first surgery.  I remembered the waiting area by the rear entrance where we all entered and had waited because we could see her only one at a time.  

As I looked at my other half, as he slowly began his emergence from the anesthesia induced slumber, it struck me how different he looked from when I first saw my mom.  It pays to be married to an Englishman.  That stiff upper lip British thing can be very comforting.  He had a great sense of humor as he struggled to slowly wake up.  He told me he had Popeye feet.  Took me a while to figure out he meant the little pressure cuffs they put on the feet to ensure there were no blood clots.  My mother had looked far worse but then it could be that I saw her much earlier in the recovery process than I did my other half.

I haven’t written because I have been too focused on the pain.  Sometimes, when the pain is very intense it’s hard to focus on anything else.  It hasn’t been easy living in her house, surrounded by her things, and missing the vital things that were such a huge part of my life before August 16, 2014.  It hasn’t been easy combining my life with the one she left behind in her house.  But while being in her house has been painful, it has also been comforting because I am surrounded by her.  I miss her and I accept that it may take me a very long time to emerge from this but I know I will one day.  I have that hope.  

I can’t imagine what it must be like for my brother.  I feel very bad for him because in a way, I can understand how close he was to her.  I have sons and I see it in their faces when they miss me.  I am torn.  The big sister in me wants to help make it better for him so he doesn’t hurt.  But I saw the look on his face when he walked into her house and encountered me.  I feel helpless because I can’t really help him.  I spoke to my mother-in-law at length to try to figure this out but right now my life is in a limbo until my father comes home.  I am living in her house because she entrusted me with the task of bringing love and laughter back into that house.  How can I deny her that even if the task is going to be perhaps my biggest challenge?  

I don’t know so many things, but I’m choosing not to dwell on the things I don’t know but concentrate on the choices I can make.  I have one purpose, take care of the ones she left behind.  Sitting here, beside my other half’s hospital bed, I realize the gift my mother left me in her passing.  She helped me grow up in a way I never did.  She finally severed the umbilical cord that had bound me to her since birth with her death.  This ache that I feel inside, the empty void, they will never be satisfied, not in this lifetime.  

I think I saw a glimmer of hope today that I hadn’t seen before.  I’m not there yet, but I will get to that place where I’ll be happy again.  One day.  For today, I’ll take the wonder of this unorthodox date night and be grateful that God is still in control of the details of our lives.  The things we can’t see, the road blocks that lie ahead, he makes provisions for us because he knows we will encounter them.  I’m choosing to have faith and trust in God with my innermost thoughts and desires.  I’ve got nothing else because I don’t know what the future looks like here on out.  This future is not one I had ever dreamed of so I must put my trust in someone greater than me to help guide me through this. 

Through it all, I am choosing to say thank you, even for this hiccup because through this visit to the hospital, he has helped me overcome a very difficult season in my life.  I can now move on from this place without pain or sorrow.  It’s just a hospital and they do a pretty good job taking care of you when you get here.  The pain of learning that I was going to lose her within these walls has lessened and they don’t have any hold over me.  I spent all night walking, retracing my footsteps when I was on her journey with her and I have found that I will treasure even the memories of pain and heartbreak that came from this place.