Notes from the Hospital...

Dear Readers,

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written—my father has been in the hospital with sepsis. He is getting better and seems to be stable, but I have been spending a lot of time at the nearby medical center.

I am always amazed, when I go to a hospital, at the fact that so many people show up every day to help other people. I know it sounds obvious, but each time I walk into this building it strikes me. I think of the emergency room staff, going through an ordinary work day full of the worst moments of other people’s lives. I think of babies being born and how hard it is to be sick and the people who clean up blood or set bones.

Before this happened I had a dream that I was on a bus that was about to crash and a hand appeared in front of me. I grabbed it, and in that moment in that dream I saw hand after hand all over the world—holding things, dropping things, dancing, clutching, touching, passing on light, emitting love and mercy. I saw the opposite, too, and I woke up with an almost overwhelming awareness of the power we hold in our hands. All this light, all this potential, all this war and peace and tenderness and love that comes through them. Start here when you feel powerless, the dream seemed to say. Start with what you send out in the world through your hands.

In the hospital, I’ve been watercoloring.

Yesterday Dad was on pain meds, which was hard for me because he was hurting, but not so hard for him because he thought he was at home and had spent the morning working on his book.

“You’re in the hospital,” I said when he asked who all those women ( the nurses) were in the kitchen. “You’ve been here all day.”

“That’s a surprise,” he said. “I was pretty sure I drove to Binghampton to fix the lawn mower.”

“Binghampton?” I said. “If you’re going to go someplace imaginary, why not make it someplace more fun, like Mexico or Hawaii?

“I not only drove to Binghampton,” he said, “I went to New Jersey. All the way to Trenton!”

Later I asked him if I could do some reiki on his hand. It worked on Maria’s (my sister’s) dog, I explained. One morning he couldn’t stand up and the vet said he’d need to be put to sleep. I gave him reiki and he is still alive, going for walks, loving my sister unconditionally, over a year later. Dad looked at me skeptically. I didn’t mind. One of the things I love most about believing in all the things I do is holding it all loosely, with the idea that none of it has to be true and all of it probably is. And you might believe something completely different and we can still delight in the same gorgeous moon and send warmth to each other through our powerful hands.

“That sounds odd,” Dad said.

“That’s okay,” I said. “You have odd children,” and spent the next 45 minutes holding his arm and sending him light. Dad fell asleep.

I remembered a time once when Mom was in dialysis and she asked me if I could talk to her guides for her. “Yes!” I said. “I thought you’d never ask!” I got out my notebook and tuned into her guides and started writing without letting my pen leave the page. Mom fell asleep. We spent the next half hour that way, me writing furiously, tears in my eyes because all I was hearing was that this was the final phase and they were all so proud of her, and one of the things that happens when I get messages like that is that the words are often simple, but the feelings—pride, joy, peace, expansion—are enormous.

Mom snored through the whole thing.

And sometimes I wonder if that’s how all the spirits, the universe, the trees and the wind and the planet feel. Like there they are, throwing humans all kinds of messages, and we sleep right through them.

“I know you have my right hand,” Dad said, “but who is that holding the other one?”

No one was there.

“Mom,” I said.

Anyway, here is the watercolor I finished this morning. This is Rebecca Louise, the character who lives in my head and gets VERY dramatic. (You met her in my last post, which you can read here.)

This is her response to the suggestion that she might have to do the dishes. Or, WORSE—market her own work.

Thank you for reading. Don’t forget to do something magnificent today with your beautiful hands!