THE LULU CHRONICLES
It’s Tuesday morning and we once again find ourselves at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I’m sitting in a large waiting room as I wait for Gary. He’s behind one of these art-filled walls in a sterile room lying flat on a table. Maybe at this very minute that monstrous machine is slowly circling his body taking pictures, searching, probing, sniffing like an old hunting dog on the trail trying to flush out a fox.
He’s in the room without me. I don’t like that. I like to be wherever he is. Usually they let me. I’ve sat in the corner during ultra-sounds and biopsies, but this big machine won’t allow it. It likes to do it’s hunting alone. So, I wait… with the others. I wonder if I have the same look on my face as they do? It’s an all too familiar look of controlled panic and disbelief. Right under the surface I’m sitting on a scream. If someone were to accidently touch me or bump my arm I’m afraid it would knock the lid off and out would come this sound, this horrible, guttural, low moan that would grow so loud all these pretty pictures on the wall would rattle and the glass in their frames would shatter. I don’t want to be here. It’s agony waiting to see what the hunter may or may not find. The last two times we’ve done this the old dog holed a dark spot hiding on the back of Gary’s leg… more cancer. A surgery and another round of radiation and here we are… again.
I sit here. Gary lies there. I want to be in the room. They won’t let me. He shouldn’t be in there alone. But then I remember… he isn’t! He isn’t alone. He has never been alone, not one day since his diagnosis has he ever been alone. God knows His way around Mayo pretty good. Every room is the Holy of Holies. Our Savior, our great intercessor, sits in every room with every patient and with every fearful spouse.
Gary lies as the old dog sniffs. God lies with him.
I sit in a cheerful waiting room not feeling the least bit cheerful. God sits beside me.
We will be okay. Even if a fox is found hiding, lurking, today, we will be okay.
So… I wait.
Later,
deb
2 comments:
Holding you and your family up to the Lord. Two truths- 1) we are never alone 2) we are both 100% human and 100% spiritual beings...and the 100% human heart will continue beating, hoping, questioning, doubting, longing, wandering, fearing, breaking and loving the best we know how until the miraculous moment when we no longer rely on it's frailties...and are welcomed into the center of the heart of God, 100% spiritual, at last.
Thank you for your kind thoughts and prayers. We got good news! No cancer spotted! Don't know if this is called being in remission or cancer-free. Don't care. Just know that God has shown us His mercy.
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