It’s late morning. The house is quiet. I slept very late because sleep began early this morning, not last night. My partner is still sleeping. She has not yet fully adapted back to a regular day and night schedule after tonsillectomy surgery week before last. Returning to a regular sleeping schedule remains elusive. So if she is up at 2am, I am glad to be right there with her.

My companion has felt much better the last three days and is finally able to eat, albeit slowly, food other than Jell-O, pudding, mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs. Her latest proud achievement was being able to eat pizza Saturday evening. That was a happy time!

Having one’s tonsils removed is a difficult surgery for an adult patient to have, but given time recovery is all but certain. Knowing that does not make it easy to see a loved one endure it. I am more of a spiritual man than a religious one. However, I can tell you when they wheeled the woman I love away for surgery my heart, mind and soul was calling on every source I thought might look after her. There are few non-believers in hospital waiting rooms or surgery suites!

The only specific prayer I could remember parts of is credited to Saint Francis: “…where there is worry let there be hope; darkness, daylight; sadness, joy…”. I got the general meaning correct, but some of the words were not stored away well mentally. My Higher Power did not care and heard me just the same. The woman in my heart is healing well.

Since as a kid being made to go to church three times a week by an abusive stepfather, God and I have been tenuous friends at best. Then I prayed for the abuse to stop and when it didn’t I came to believe there was no God. If anything, I decided I had to be my own god. And that kind of worked for a long time.

Eventually through life changes, heartache and recovery from depression and a host of childhood junk, I came to believe in something beyond myself. I can’t regularly give him/her/it a specific name except God, Higher Power or Einstein’s “the great cosmic mystery”. But I know there is something powerful beyond my comprehension working behind all things.

This morning it is with wet-eyed thanks I express my gratitude for my partner being safe and healing. That she is sleeping comfortably this morning is another of my life’s miracles I will not ever forget to be thankful for.

In the busy-ness of my day, I sometimes forget to stop
and say thank you for all that is good in my life.
My blessings are many and my heart is filled
with gratefulness for the gift of living,
for the ability to love and be loved,
for the opportunity to see the everyday wonders of creation,
for sleep and water, for a mind that thinks and a body that feels.
I am thankful, too, for those things in my life
that are less than I would hope them to be.
Things that seem challenging, unfair, or difficult.
When my heart feels stretched and empty,
and pools of tears form in my weary eyes,
still I am grateful for my next breath
and that in the midst of turbulence,
I am growing and learning. In the silence of my soul,
I thank you most of all for your unconditional and eternal love
and the care taken of all those I love and hold precious,
particularly today my dear Tania. Amen.

Adapted from a prayer found at http://chirho.wordpress.com