“am I going to be okay?”

i’m sitting here in the er waiting room after a few hours of sitting snuggled next to hunter. they finally took him back and he finally talked to the doctor. his lung x-ray was clear. now he’s getting some bloodwork and an ekg to check his heart, and then some more bloodwork in two hours. it’s been a long night. it’s been a long day actually. it started out with a pleasant morning at a coffee shop in jc and a 9:30am lunch, and then a long airport trek back to fort myers. and now it’s 12:45 am and here I sit, covered in a face mask and a hospital blanket, staring at the ceiling mostly (it feels weird when I close my eyes), and getting excited every time hunter texts me. apparently there’s a hurricane on its way to eradicate the state of florida. that seems like a problem for tomorrow, or maybe wednesday. sitting here is making me think back to all of the other times i’ve visited a hospital. when we took dad to the emergency room in texas because of his terrible heart burn after getting an endoscope. when we stood outside where I am right now and waited for kenzie to be released after her wreck. when I took anne to her breast cancer check up. always lots of waiting, and uncertainty, and a little fear. I was just remembering the time I fell and hit my head when I was five, and how odd it must have felt when my dad saw all the blood running down my face. I remember him picking me up and taking me back to the house. I didn’t know why at first. then I noticed that I was getting blood on his shirt, and I remember apologizing for it. i’m sure he said something along the lines of ‘it’s okay sweetheart’. I wasn’t really scared. he tells this story in sermons a lot. apparently I looked up at him and asked, ‘daddy, am I going to be okay?”

when I thought about that just now, it made me cry. picturing a five year old little girl looking up at me and asking if she is going to be okay, oh man. in hindsight I think I wasn’t scared because I never once looked in a mirror. I never totally knew what was going on lol. it’s so much harder when you’re the one who has to decide what to do in an emergency, and when to even decide if something is an emergency. I hope I always remember being curled up next to hunter under that thin hospital blanket, looking out from our corner of the waiting room at all of the hurt people around us, and then leaning against each other as we tried to sleep. just the two of us. there was something precious about that moment. like when I was five and my big eyes stared up at my dad who was holding me. something precious about being young and uncertain and even alone. worried before god, looking up and asking the father if we are okay. and when I think about all of this, I feel joy even here.