MARCH 27, 2024 – Early this morning I woke up, checked the time—5:00—started coughing and went straight into a panic attack. It was stupid really. There was no reason for such alarm. Well, I won’t say there was no reason, but as far as I could tell there was no good reason. Except, I thought, what is and what isn’t a good reason? I was having trouble breathing—it seemed—but was I really or was I just imagining it? If I lay down again, would I stop breathing? Did I need to wake up Beth? Did I need to call 9-1-1?
Eventually, I did lie down and resumed sleeping—for another hour, whereupon the panic attack cycle was repeated. This occurred yet a third time before I decided I’d had enough of this nonsense. I climbed out of bed and for the next 15 minutes, coughed, sputtered, and went through three yards of T.P. servicing my (constantly) runny nose. In another hour, the workmen would be on hand to tear apart our upstairs bathroom. Ahead of them would be the plumber to shut off our house water supply for the day.
The day had barely started, and I was already feeling plenty sorry for myself. After all, I’m still officially sick, if a constantly runny nose and persistent cough qualify me.
Fortunately, I intercepted myself before I made a complete fool of myself. On my slow descent down the stairway to catch up with Beth, who’d already turned the coffee on and was otherwise ready for the work crew (despite suffering from a cold, as well), I gave myself a fierce lecture on how to count a few simple but major blessings. We aren’t trying to survive in Gaza, for one thing. I can breathe, for another. The sun came up for a third.
Before long, my day was filled with the blinding light of good cheer and promise. My good friends Linda and Peter called from Jamaica to see how I was doing. Bound with encouragement, their words had levitational effect, becoming a magic carpet that whisked me straight away from my woes. Their photos of paradise worked as a navigational aid, and soon I too could feel the sunshine and warm ocean breeze.
Other friends called to provide encouragement, and from 1,200 miles away, I received the latest photo of the “little guy,” our not-quite-eight-month-old grandson, sporting his first teeth and a prize-winning smile. And I was feeling sorry for myself?
Then Efrain, our contractor, took time out from the bathroom project to shovel out my car. He’d seen me struggling earlier and thought he’d make my life just a little easier. Already master of our kitchen makeover, Efrain is one of those big-hearted people we’re lucky to have on our side—as is his helper, I can see, by how well Efrain treats him.
Late this afternoon, while Beth was at Illiana’s weekly swimming class, I stood in our dining room and noticed how far the shadows loomed over yesterday’s new fallen snow. The air is still crisp, but the sun lingers far longer—and higher than it was a few short weeks ago. Soon the ground will be green, not white; birds and buds will burst forth, and with them, the eternal hope that arrives with every spring.
With no one to hear me, I mumbled the phrase I’d once learned to detest but later came to embrace: “Act enthusiastic, you become enthusiastic.” I said it out again, annunciating more clearly. I repeated it several times, until I laughed, then coughed, then defiantly, laughed some more.
And at daybreak I’d had the audacity to feel sorry for myself?
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
