“When you begin to touch your heart or allow your heart to be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space” — Pema Chodron

I waited. Four hours of that kind of waiting. Pure torture. I sat on a couch in an area designed for this specific reason. To wait. One floor above, my husband lay on an operating table, his back cut open, his doctors fixing him to the best of their abilities. From where I sat, the doors opening to where I had left him were visible. His mom, his brother and his brother’s girlfriend waited beside me. This offered me no solace. They were just there waiting along with me. Praying their prayers. They could not reassure me. They had no more knowledge than I did. I wanted a doctor beside me. Someone who could explain the surgery to me step by step. “They have done the first incision. They are looking at the spinal column now. The bone fragments have not done too much damage. His heartbeat is strong. His body is not reacting in an abnormal way. This looks better than I thought. Don’t worry, he is going to be just fine.” I wanted to be there in the room with him. I wanted to be holding his hand. Even if he was not conscious. I wanted him to feel me there beside him. I wanted to know that at every second in that surgery he was okay. This was not possible. So, I lived in my head. I sat there next to others who loved him, and I struggled with my own fears. I prayed for my own prayers.

After a while, my body refused to let me sit for one moment longer. It needed movement. I wanted the four hours to be over. But, I had to wait. I had to believe. I had to not panic. So, I pushed the fear down, into myself, in order to calm my body. I put a mask on my face to stop me from breaking down. I hid from even myself. I could not cry. I could not express my fears. To do so would have made it even worse. To focus on that would have been too much. I focussed instead on sending him positive energy, and I started to walk. Alone. I walked the halls that I had already come to know, and then I walked into areas that I had not yet discovered. A hallway. I can still recollect it clearly to this day. A long, clean white hallway leading to another wing. The walking soothed. The movement of my body helped to stop the constant movement in my body.

New doors. Ones I had not seen before. The Chapel. I pushed them open, and a cool embrace welcomed me in. I felt it as soon as I stepped into the room. It had a peaceful energy. It was calming. I sat down on a dark wooden pew and watched as light danced on the white wall in front of me. Except for me, the chapel was empty. Here I could let myself cry. I had so much hope in my body, but I was so scared. I thought about our children and the life we had created together. It was really just beginning. The surgery was so important. It could go so many different ways. I prayed for the best case scenarios. I pushed the worst ones from my mind. I imagined the other people who were praying for him. I imagined their prayers all flowing toward him. I am not sure if that is how it works, but it is what I imagined. As I sat, I prayed as well. I prayed in the way that people do in times like this. I prayed for him, for myself, for my children, for us.

At 11:45 pm, I found myself standing outside the doors to the Surgical Unit. I could not sit, and walking had lost its ability to calm me. I willed the surgeon to walk through those doors. The last fifteen minutes. They felt harder. The waiting painful. The uncertainty was killing me. I had kept it together for three hours and forty-five minutes. The last fifteen felt unmanageable. I leaned against the wall for support and watched the doors. I did not want to miss the doctor, though I do not know how he would have gotten by me. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the doors opened. The surgeon walked out. It was almost midnight. When he saw me, he stopped and walked to stand in front of me. I cannot imagine what my face looked like to him. I’m sure he had seen it a thousand times before. I waited for his words. “He is fine….” My body relaxed just a little. He is fine. The best words.  He was still with us, and all of those worse case scenarios thankfully were not to be. He had made it through those four hours. I had made it through those four hours. There was still a mountain of uncertainty, but I now knew this. He had survived the surgery. He was not paralyzed. He would be able to walk. Again, we had been saved. Again, we were lucky.