Heck of a Week

This week has gone surprisingly well. Mostly. We did hear that Spouse's niece's son, a five-year-old, took seriously ill. They brought him to the local doctors, who weren't able to diagnose him properly. Neither did they recognize the seriousness of the illness until it had become frightening. The poor little guy developed pneumonia. Fortunately, they were only an hour away from Children's Hospital in St. Paul, which takes all children - even when the parents can't afford health insurance. They had to drain the fluid from his lungs, but we received an email today that the procedure went well and he's recovering nicely. Don't know when he'll be out of the hospital.

Threats to our children. I cannot think of anything which frightens me more than when Son has been sick. When he went to the hospital as an infant I wasn't able to speak. When we had to call 911 because he was coughing so hard he started to bleed, it was all I could do to keep myself from racing in a panic. There is no fear like the fear of losing a child. There just isn't. For those of you without children - you're lucky. And unlucky at the same time. There is also no love like it.

But other than that the week was filled with good news. For one thing, lots of unexpected money came our way.

It began when a friend of ours who had left the state felt led to send us a large sum of money in the mail. She wrote that when she was wiped out someone had taken care of her, and now she wanted to pass on the blessing. She gave us two hundred dollars! I was stunned. Spouse broke down and cried. This was the friend Spouse withdrew from when she announced she was lesbian. But she remained a friend anyway, and eventually Spouse learned to deal with things. I'll say her name is Wealote, because I've never known anyone by that name, but it has the same meaning as the real person. Wealote is probably one of the kindest and most generous people I know. You know, it's funny, but thirty-one years ago Wealote had wanted to marry me, too. Spouse was just more aggressive. (She lost by winning.) Maybe that's Wealote's motivation. It's her way of telling Spouse, "Thank You."

What was interesting about this money was there was a chance we would not get it. Wealote send the money in cash. And the postal delivery person put it in the wrong mailbox. And the people who received it opened it. Had they kept the money we would not have known anything about it until Wealote contacted us again. And we would never know who wound up with the money. But even here amongst the poor there is a code of honor which people follow. The card - with the money - was slipped under our door during the night.

The same day we got Wealote's money we received two other things in the mail. One was from my mother, who sent twenty-five dollars. For a person on a fixed income that is a lot of money.

Still the same day we received a refund check from the heart clinic. Turns out the heart echogram thing that the insurance I still had last year wouldn't cover didn't cost as much as we wound up paying. We got a check for another twenty-five dollars.

And then today we got another refund. This time from the house. Since we lost the house the insurance company refunded us for money we had paid ahead of time for covering it. That was another five hundred and twelve dollars.

So we got a lot of money this week. God does take care of us. But in my mind and heart that means more than money. The love behind the money, and this means Wealote and my mother.

And, to be completely honest, there is also a shame in needing the generosity of others. Maybe it's good to feel the shame and maybe it isn't. I don't know. It is good to feel loved.

That I do know.