Matters of life and death
Yesterday I got out the egg tree. Some of these eggs are from when I was a child. Some are made by my daughters. I always enjoy this little display during this Easter season.
I also got out our Easter countdown things, including my scarred angel of courage. We’ll unwrap one or two items a day starting on Sunday:
All of this was after our trip to the vet with little Teddy. The vet suspects a broken pelvis, which could be confirmed with an x-ray, but there was little point given that it wouldn’t change the treatment — restrict her movement, give her something for the pain, and hope for the best. Honestly, it’s not looking good. She has done nothing but sleep since our trip to the vet: no eating, drinking, or moving. But we’ve done what we could.
One of the kind things the vet did was pre-measure the painkillers into droppers for us. The amounts are so tiny that she thought that would make it easier for us. While that was going on, the girls and I waited in the exam room, listening to the constant hum of the computer. It’s a sound I associate with hospitals — a continuous noise that makes you feel like a state of equilibrium is being maintained in countless neutral-colored cells stretching out from you in all directions. The inanimate breathing of an institution.
It’s a numbing, dulling sound. It’s the sound of my life these days, weighed down under a spirit of lethargy. I can’t honestly say my heart is hard, because to me that implies a setting of the will against God. But it is strangely impassive as I go through the motions of life.
I wonder if the hum of routine, the hum of all my default settings, has simply deadened me. My reading and praying and writing and familying and schooling have somehow generated a noise level that subdues and distracts rather than carrying me to the heart.
The season of hibernation is ending. It’s the season of resurrection, and I’m in need of the Life-giver’s touch.
5 Comments
Barbara H.
Poor Teddy. Hoping for the best, but…like you said, it doesn’t sound good.
I’ve experienced those lethargic, impassive cycles without really knowing what led into or out of them except for a slow “thaw” granted by the Lord as things begin to go back to normal. May He grant you a spring of soul soon.
Carrie, Reading to Know
Aww, poor Teddy indeed! Thank you for the update. How are the girls doing with it?
I was scrolling through my google reader and the picture of the tree with the eggs popped up. Bookworm1 stopped me in my tracks. “HEY! That’s COOL! Who made that!??!”
He’s impressed. =)
Janet
I always was too — which is probably why I continue the tradition now as an alleged grown-up!
The girls are managing all right. I heard Younger Daughter go into Older Daughter’s room earlier today and say, “If Teddy dies, we don’t have a tombstone for her!”
Older Daughter said, “Well, we’re hoping we won’t need to worry about that for a long time. But if Teddy dies, I know right where we should bury her.”
Then she came out, told me where the prospective gravesite is, and said, “Probably we shouldn’t read from the Bible. But we could read some passages from her autobiography.” (Older D wrote one awhile back.)
Amy @ Hope Is the Word
Oh, Janet, your posts are always so, so, so–what? Well written. We start with an egg tree, visit a sick and sad little hamster, and end up with Resurrection. I’m with you on the soul lethargy right now. I think part of mine is I am so very busy that I hardly have time to breathe. I don’t like all this going and doing. I like to just be sometimes.
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