It was a typical Sunday morning for me.....running around, doing my Children's Minister thing. I took my seat on the front row for the first Service, picked up the bulletin and perused it one last time making sure I had all of my ducks in a row. The All Saints insert slipped out, and I bent to pick it up. I had seen this insert multiple times this past week - in staff meeting, in an email, laying around in the office copy room.....
On All Saints Day we read the name, light a candle and toll a bell for each of our members that have died in the past year. 14 Saints this year. And as I read the list once again, it was as though someone hit me with a red hot poker right smack in the gut.....How close I came to being the third person on that list....between Billy Morris and Dana Hatcher....two wonderful saints if there ever were any..
I was shook. The kind of shook where you hope that no one is looking at you, or counting on you for anything in that moment. Crying and shaking, I felt, perhaps for the first time, the full weight of just how close of a call I had....If I had gone back to bed that morning like I wanted to do - I felt so unwell.....if I hadn't been standing in a crowded room when the larger of the clots hit my brain...if the ER Docs hadn't responded so well and so quickly....if the clot busting drug had not busted those 9 clots.....I could have been...would have been number 3 on that list today. My name read, a candle lit, and a bell tolled - for me.
My one year anniversary is weeks away....and I am feeling the effects.
This afternoon, my kitchen was full of laughter. Women from all periods and aspects of my life crowded into my kitchen for my first "Craft Social". Everybody brought their own art project, and we ate good food, and drank 3 pots of coffee. We worked and talked - face to face, not on FaceBook, or a text or a SnapChat...crowded around my kitchen table and a card table brought out for overflow. We squeezed around all of the chairs to get to the food, and the coffee and plugs for hot glue guns. The art was fun, the food was great - but the laughter...that was life giving. In the midst of it all, I saw clearly the thread that ran through us ...some people knew each other, some knew no one but me...they were my first self chosen friend at age three. My best friend through Jr. High and High School. A college friend. A favorite teacher that guided all three of my children through elementary school. Colleagues. Church friends....telling our stories, sharing our journeys....for those few sacred hours, in the confines of my kitchen... community.
From low to high in a matter of hours.
I was NOT number three on the list. I grow weary of being a stroke patient in recovery. I have had enough of an isolation that began long before I had my strokes....
I was NOT number three on the list. I am going to be intentional about forging community. Intentional in creating spaces for fellowship....and laughter.
I was NOT number three on the list. I am going to be mindful. The coffee was great....the Buffalo Chicken Dip was deeelicious....but the camaraderie - that was sublime. And the laughter.....as good as a clot busting drug.
