Even more people have offered to cook for us. I know that they want to do something concrete to help, and we do so appreciate it--still, there are only two of us and Pat has a tiny appetite. With luck he'll come home Monday and we'll reconstruct our ordinary lives.
The Sam Houston BearKats played their championship game today, and lost to the Bison of North Dakota State. It was a very hard-fought game with few penalties, one both sides can be proud of. However, there isn't as much joy in Huntsville tonight as we had hoped. The undefeated (till now) season is a first for the team. I loyally flaunted my BearKat tee shirt yesterday and today like a good girl, and the entire hospital staff was decked out in orange and white. It was very sweet.
My good friend, colleague and Wright State University classmate Carol Dixon sent me a poem that just touched me this evening. I hope others will understand how meaningful this is:
Blessings, by John O'Donohue
"On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders
and you stumble, may the clay dance to balance you.
And when your eyes freeze behind the grey window
and the ghost of loss gets in to you, may a flock of colours, indigo, red, green, and azure blue come to awaken in you a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays in the currach of thought and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you, may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours, may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours, may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow wind work these words of love around you,
an invisible cloak to mind your life."