On Healing

A bit of advice.

When you find yourself

three years removed from a nightmare

hospital room on the neurology wing

where you watch helplessly

as your professor wife

with a long history of MS

declines so precipitously

during a flare-up of her disease

that her hand curls up

useless against her wrist

in a matter of days

and she cannot move either leg

and you and your young son must

feed her from a spoon

as if she is a baby bird

and she cannot tell you

the days of the week or even

why it matters that there are days

of the week

you will still be healing.

And so will she.

And you will be amazed

frightened angry sad grateful

pissed-off relieved exhilarated

sobbing laughing dancing

while praying and discovering

that healing and recovery

are not the same thing

and that time, slow

agonizing, healing time

will beat patience

into your hurried self

like it or not.

And if others ask

“how do you heal?”

shrug your shoulders

at the impossibility

of putting into words

what you struggle to know.

Tell them this, if you must:

Healing is unpredictable, hard, easy, a gift.

Healing will knock you to your knees.

Healing will lift the weight of the world from your shoulders.

Healing will just happen

as you get on with life.

Healing is invisible.

Healing is forgettable.

Healing is hard to watch.

Healing is a son-of-a-bitch.

Healing is god, healing

does not have a past tense.

Dave, JD, Anna

– David Haws

David claims he grew up bouncing around the country for no good reason in (mostly rural) areas of Texas, Iowa, New Mexico, Montana, and Washington. He is married to Anna. They live in Montevallo, Alabama, with their soon-to-be-teenager son, John David, two dogs, one cat, and a continually changing collection of fish. David is a full-time house-husband, caretaker of Anna, and father who is still trying to decide what he wants to be when he grows up. David takes interest in all kinds of things that delight or surprise, including musing about religion, being entertained by pets, raising kids, making and listening to music, watching movies and plays, making and keeping friends, and reading anything that has ever been printed.