After my husband collapsed the night we arrived in Helsinki, Finland, to visit our son last summer, I feared I’d return home a widow.
The thought terrified me, in large part because I’d never considered it.
Before that fateful August night, I lived each day racing to accomplish to-do lists and grappling with an overabundance of work and a lack of time. I’ll be honest: After 27 years of marriage, I took my life and my husband for granted.
Not anymore.
Seldom does a day go by without me thanking God for my husband, my children, my family, my friends. Thanksgiving, the national holiday to give thanks for bountiful harvests, is a terrific time to appreciate what matters most in life—the people.
As I sat for hours in that hospital waiting room in a foreign land, I felt overwhelming gratitude for the ability to send emails and text messages to family members, friends and prayer warriors. Their missives to God wrapped us in warmth and comfort as we waited to hear—would he live or would he die?
When friendly Finnish doctors and nurses at Helsinki University Hospital conveyed the diagnosis to us—complete heart block—nearly everyone spoke English, a huge blessing during a time of trauma. We discovered later that most learned it as a second language in third grade. When some apologized for their poor English, my husband responded, “It’s better than my Finnish.”
Our 17-year-old daughter remembered to call 112 for emergency dispatchers and guided first responders to our fifth-floor Airbnb. She contacted our son and his girlfriend who raced to our place in the wee hours of the morning. The three hailed a cab and followed the ambulance to the hospital. They had each other, thank God.
“I’m so glad you’re alive,” I tell my husband at least once or twice a week. Simple words to convey a huge blessing.
My son, only 23, has established a career with a computer science company that took him to St. Paul, Minnesota for one year, and now Helsinki, Finland, for two. As my friend Sandy Crowell said, “He launched well.” What a blessing.
My daughter is applying to colleges, preparing to graduate from Toledo High School in June and leave home in the fall. As I gird myself for the empty nest, I treasure my time with this dear, sweet girl who cooked vegan chili and gluten-free bread for my personal historians’ potluck last week and packed it into a bag with plastic spoons and paper bowls.
I spent time with two of my four sisters listening to an author, and when a cousin in the Midwest noted under the photo on Facebook, “You are all fortunate to still have each other,” I counted more blessings. My four sisters and my brother and I are all living. My cousin, one of eight, has buried five of her siblings. Another cousin had only one sister, and she’s passed away. My heart breaks when I hear of siblings who don’t speak to each other, children who shut out their parents, moms and dads who discarded their offspring.
Life is too short.
Twice last week I shared drafts of my fiction writing with colleagues in critique groups. They provided terrific suggestions for improving it. Proverbs says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” They are blessings.
So is the friend I walk with almost daily along a rural road. We read devotionals from “Jesus Calling” and pray for friends we know who need the grace of God.
Blessings abound, big and small. I’m grateful to Applebee’s for honoring veterans with a free meal last week. My husband who was fighting in Vietnam 50 years ago enjoyed a free dinner and words of gratitude for his service. Sunbird Shopping Center offered veterans a 20 percent discount for two weeks, another blessing.
I’m grateful voters passed a bond to build a new Toledo High School to serve future generations.
As I pumped gas today at Safeway in Centralia, I felt grateful for the lower-than-elsewhere gas prices and the same price whether using cash or credit card. I like to use my credit card so I can earn miles for another trip somewhere someday.
But maybe one without the drama of our last vacation.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at chaptersoflife1999@gmail.com.
