I want to say thank you to all of you who have been sending cards, emails, texts and messages on social media. Each one, in every form received, has been read, and brought us comfort. Many have also brought us to tears and have been an aid to us in grief. Even though most of you live at a distance, it is wonderful to have our community surround us during this time.

I’ve been slow to send many individual responses as we’ve continued to be busy and face on-going challenges here. On Thursday, we drove to the crematorium to see Jules one final time before his cremation. It was a hard day for both Willa and I. We were grateful to see him one last time, though I was frustrated that I could not place him in the kiln myself — and we were sad to think of him resting alone in the morgue on Christmas. Somehow it was relieving to learn on Monday when we collected his ashes that he had been cremated shortly after we saw him.

On Thursday, Willa also began to complain of having difficulty seeing. We thought it may have been all the crying, but by Saturday night, she was having lots of pain in her eyes. By Sunday, she couldn’t open her eyes or see at all. Fortunately, my father Bob was still here, my brother Nick was on speed dial, and even my sister-in-law Angie’s mother was able to offer medical counsel from Minnesota. 

Dad used his doctoring ways to figure out that there was an eye emergency room in center city and after spending the day there on Monday we found out that Willa has a viral infection in both eyes — apparently she was marked out for another rare affliction. Thank goodness it is treatable. She started on a course of various antiviral medications. Yesterday and today her pain has been slowly dissipating and her eyesight is returning, though still far from there. 

I’ve never seen the movie and don’t even know what it’s about, but I’m a sucker for puns so I’ve been calling her my “blues brother” since she’s been wandering the house in sunglasses with the lights and shades down. (Teasing her is another favorite pastime of mine, and so far she’s let me have this one.) 

She’s stalwart, as any who know her know well, but also exhausted. We’re hoping she’ll continue improving steadily. I think she’s ready to regain her bodily independence. If you know her, please keep sending her your messages of love.

I think we’ve both been a bit distraught that we are so caught up with keeping on with living that we haven’t had as much time as we’d wish to grieve. I guess the truth is that we’re only just beginning, and there’s lots of time ahead.

I have never had a great sadness before, but so far grief seems much like depression. It’s like someone took a hoover to your soul, then dropped your body into a gravity chamber. Reading even a few loving messages takes great fortitude, and lifting a finger or an arm can be exhausting. Right now, it feels like our grief needs silence, and maybe a little beauty too. When we’re able, we’ve been reading lots of Mary Oliver’s book Thirst, singing hymns, and even reading a few old EB White essays aloud yesterday. 

To end where we started, we are so grateful to each of you. We’ve been so heartened by the 82 people who have donated to Every Mother Counts. Meals and the like keep appearing at just the right moment, kindness like a miracle (cf. “In the Storm”, Mary Oliver). From people we’ve known since childhood to people we’ve only just met, we are astounded by your kindness.

When I lived in Senegal, I learned the Wolof saying: People are people’s medicine. These days, I see it’s true.

When our pastor visited us in the hospital to bless Jules he shared this verse with us from Isaiah:

Can a woman forget her nursing child,

    or show no compassion for the child of her womb?

Even these may forget,

    yet I will not forget you.

See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;

    your walls are continually before me.

We went back to look at it and found it continues:

Your builders outdo your destroyers,

    and those who laid you waste go away from you.

Lift up your eyes all around and see;

    they all gather, they come to you.

As I live, says the Lord,

    you shall put all of them on like an ornament,

    and like a bride you shall bind them on.

So, we want you to know: You are medicine to us now, and we are binding you to us like ornaments as we mourn.