Oct 20 Update
Pondering.
I often wake in the wee hours. No longer something that distresses me and I sometimes try to guess what time it might be. First it was just after 1:00 am, so I tell myself go back to sleep. And I do. Then again a while later I am alert. I lie quietly, wondering if there is some special communion with the Trinity or if it is simply a time to rest in my room and speak out the things I am grateful for.
It is two weeks today, that events here went sideways. I am now calling it the COVID bomb. It had detonated without our knowing it one weekend, late September. As the impact of it grew and the consequences increased, Dennis and I searched for answers to explain to each other what we were in. Those have slowly been revealed, prayed into and we are contending for healing. For all of us. Last evening, I spoke at different times with all the kids. The last two days frankly, have been a bit harder to ‘press in’ and see past the present reality.
What we all came to was this…we have not been able to find markers to look toward as this journey of healing for Dennis has been a bit complicated. A bit of the COVID highs and lows. Something the folk in ICU are aware of and not intimidated by. They assure me we just need to give it more time. And by grace, we have that. Time…
This morning, Toby was trying to wake me. He quietly growls, as if he is too hungry to wait for breakfast. It is Wednesday. Coffee morning so I think, perhaps it might be time to go downstairs and enjoy. Looking at my phone, I see it is just about 3:30 a.m. A bit early for coffee but Toby persists and so, I make my way downstairs, in this home that is still so new to me that it has surprises to offer.
The kitchen/family room is in diffused light and I look up, to see the full moon just above one of the two skylights. Moonlights, I think to myself . Of the many gifts this house affords, that from the windows I can see stars at night, remains a delight. I doubt I will lose the wonder of that. I feed Toby sparingly, knowing he will, like a little Hobbit, want elevensies, at seven.
I sit in silence in this beautiful room. In this home that Dennis found. I look over at two chairs he found on Kijiji, they are elegant to the max. Wide lapped, probably the most well made pieces in the house and I remember the day he went to pick them up. All agog about how little he paid, he returned and put them in place with his usual excitement. I have never known a man who delights in design more than he.
He was at his best, as we gave away things that did not fit this smaller home but found ‘just the perfect’ piece for the new one. He had found three chairs before we moved, for the kitchen nook. They sat in the garage of our old place and he commented often on how perfect they were going to be. Then, he ordered the table to match. It arrived here one day and as we were assembling it, marvelling at how well made it was, worried it would be too large. Thankfully, it had a removable leaf and that then became the perfect piece. ‘We can put the leaf in when the Grandkids are here’, he said.
I sit in this house, this first home we have ever owned, alone. I look at the maple rocking chair Dennis brought to me in 1986 before Abigail was born. I put aside the ‘Bentwood rocker’ that I nursed the first two children in and then this old fashioned rocker got it’s use with Abigail and Joshua. It sits ready for me to hold Abigail’s first born.
In our 41 years of marriage, Dennis has always turned wherever we live, however humble or grand, into something to behold. And this home, this house he celebrated because of how it came to us and how hard he looked is no less visually stunning. All the rooms reflect his creativity. All reflect his love of beauty and his desire to provide for me, our family and friends a place to gather, to share meals, to declare that His kingdom has come on earth, as it is in heaven.
To that end, I am declaring this as a marker, the guidepost we are looking toward.
This is the home he will return to. The house that one dear friend has named, “the house that love built”.
Gratefully,
Katie and family
