Not much to report from Widow Neff this week.
Last week’s post published on Wednesday followed by a positive PCR test arriving to me the day after. By then, I mostly felt better, but the official “symptoms” continue into today, yet another Wednesday, and just five days after the confirmed Covid test.
PATIENCE is required to wait out the process and protocols that follow a confirmed Covid diagnosis.
Yet, the PRESENCE of a virus with its accompanying symptoms brings a longing for the ABSENCE of symptoms in order to get on with life.
No fever – Check!
No sore throat – Check!
No body aches – Check!
Mild congestion–still a yes–and a mild cough is still hanging on.
I’m not completely there yet.
more to be revealed next week . . .
In the meantime, I am reading Sparrow: A Book of Life and Death and Life by Jan Richardson. The book was originally written to her husband while keeping vigil for him in the hospital. Six months after his passing, she returned to her writings to consider the question:
“Who am I, when the person who saw and knew me best in all the world is gone from this world?”
When I first picked up the book, I wasn’t sure I could read it. Pages thick with words by a writer, author, and ordained minister in the Methodist tradition, writing to her deceased husband, a songwriter and musician…but her sincerity pulled me in.
What I found, as I proceeded without judgment, was a glimpse into a life rent with grief; a community surrounding her and journeying with her through her grief; the day to day pulse of a grief fluid and alive. I met questions, wonderings, signs, symbols, and an invitation to the journey within.
