A year ago today, after having symptoms for five weeks, I tested positive for Covid 19. My bishop had instructed me to stop working until I was fully recovered. We couldn't have known then that "fully recovered" might not happen. After close to a month off, I returned to work, not really feeling better, but not feeling quite as bad. Of course, I continue to live in hope (or denial) that I will fully recover at some point, that my energy will return, that I will be able to take long walks again and work full days without having to lie down for meetings or rests, that I will feel like me. Until that time, I will be grateful for good days.
Folks at church have learned to ask, "Is it a good day?" Sometimes they know by looking at my face or by how fast I'm moving. Sometimes I look good even though I feel ready for a nap. Masks can hide a lot. Nothing pleases me more than being able to say, "It's a good day." That means I didn't struggle to shower, dress, and drive in. That means when I walked up the steps of the pulpit to place my sermon or to light the pulpit candles that I didn't get short of breath. That means that I might have energy to make lunch when I get home instead of falling over in a heap as soon as I walk in the door.
Last week I was blessed by a series of good days. Days when I could take a shower when I got up rather than waiting until later in the day in the hopes that it wouldn't drain all my energy. Days when I could go to Bruton and then SpiritWorks like I'm supposed to. Days when I was able to make hospital visits. I don't get lured anymore into thinking that I'm "cured" or that Long Covid has ended. So when they ask how I'm doing when I arrive at SpiritWorks, I answer, "I'm grateful for some good days."
Even though I don't think I'm better, it still surprises me when morning comes like it did on Friday, after a week of good days, including preaching on Sunday, and I can't make myself wake up. I eventually roused enough to shower and eat some lunch and go in to work, but then I found myself needing to lie back down before I could prepare anything to eat, and I slept for two more hours - 11 1/2 total for the day, and I still had no energy. We had been invited to a friend's house for dinner, and I didn't know how I would make it. But I wanted to try. And I needed to eat. When we arrived, I was overwhelmed by the sound of friends talking and dogs barking and a warm house. I seem to have developed an oversensitivity to sound and heat. I joined Jan outside, and we walked carefully down to the stone terrace overlooking the water - I wasn't sure I would be able to get back up the stairs, but Jan said she'd help me. The view was worth it.
Sitting there, looking at the water, listening to the gentle breeze rustling the new leaves on the trees, I felt soothed. That's the word that came to mind. The view and the air and the new growth of spring were soothing, like a balm for my soul. One at a time friends came down to talk to me - and I could manage that. I took a picture so I could remember how it felt to sit there - being restored so that I could enjoy the delicious dinner and good company that would follow. The rest of the weekend was hard, not bad days, but not good days. Yesterday I had to attend a meeting lying down with my camera off.
Today, though. Today was a good day. I woke up and showered - always the key, if I can get through that. Worked from 9-7:30 including four significant meetings and took a walk.
Today was a good day for a much more important reason than my energy level, though. Today Derek Chauvin was found guilty on three counts for killing George Floyd by kneeling on his neck. A white police officer was found guilty for killing a black man. Accountability. Police officers risk their lives every day, and I am grateful for their service, but they cannot be above the law, and too many black people have died unjustly. Today was a good day on the long journey to justice for people of color in this country.
My experience with Covid-19 is no parallel for the injustice and oppression that people of color endure every day. But it has helped me understand what it means to be grateful for a good day. And what it means to know that tomorrow might not be a good day. Today was a good day for me - but truly I think what boosted my energy was witnessing a tiny step forward in a centuries long struggle - a struggle in which people with one color of skin fight desperately to maintain power over the lives of people with another color of skin, while those people fight to stay alive.
As I breathe a prayer of thanks, I pray for more good days ahead. May "justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." May we one day know that we are all of one blood, one race, the human race, and may we all treat one another as if each life matters. Because each one does. Then, at the end of every day, we can be grateful for a good day.
I'm struck by the way you have been lifted out of your own struggle by a transcendent vision of racial justice. You are a healing spirit for the world.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Seems to me that we can get caught in focusing on our own struggle to the exclusion of anything outside ourselves or denying our own struggles because "other people" have it worse. Finding that balance where we can honor our own pain and difficulty as valid while recognizing that we are a small part of an interconnected whole where others' suffering may be greater than ours but does not negate ours is the challenge. At least for me. Thank you for reading!
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