I laid down beside my son as he started to fall asleep on a blanket in front of the Good Night Show. I let my breaths match his and felt his little heart beat as he snuggled close to me. Lub dub. Lub dub. He reaches to pull his blanket to cover me too, as he senses my need for comfort.
A hour away from this tender scene, the man he calls Pop is lying in a hospital bed hooked up to a ventilator while he struggles to recover from bacterial pneumonia. He has been a surrogate father to my husband, father in law to me, and grandfather to my son. His prognosis is not good, but even as I may say where there is life there is hope, I must brace myself for a loss and grief that is already beginning to overtake me even as I type.
I add his wife, whom my husband calls Mom, to the prayer list for the Sunday bulletin for my church, where Pop has been the interim vicar for the past twelve years. I worry for her. She has not been sleeping well as her hopes rise and fall with the waves of good and bad news.
They are not my blood, as my students would say, but they are my family. Their pain is my pain.
I think this will be a comfort food weekend.
Knock, Knock
Who's there?
Olive
Olive who?
Olive you, Father.
