The Hospital

"Momma," Janie says, "why is it a hospital where they go to die?"

She scoops an almond out of her oatmeal. I crunch cereal. "They don't have some of the things we have, honey." We chew. I sip coffee.

"They have one of the things we do," she says.

"What's that?" I fish around for a pecan, bite it in half.

"Hands," she says.

"And doctors," Jack pipes in.

"Hm," I sigh. "And God."

Jack furrows his brow, looks up, "Why do they have God?"

His elbow brushes my arm. "If people are there," I say, " and they pray, where is God?"

"Right IN there." He doesn't hesitate. As if captured by the idea, he hums between bites, "God-is-in-the-hospital. GOD-is-in-the-hospital." His spoon clanks against the bowl, but all I hear is, God is in the hospital.

Hands and doctors and God.

God is in the hospital.








Gratitude:

197. Emmanuel, well enough to leave the hospital.

198. No malaria in the mosquitoes here.

199. Child prayers.

200. How Lulie copies and prays like a big kid.

201. How Janie practices being easy to correct.

202. The way she erases and makes sloppy letters neat.

203. How Jack JUMPS off rocks, furniture, kitchen benches, the hearth.

204. How WIDE he opens his eyes when something is really funny or scary.

205. The way children memorize -- rote memory -- absorb it and love it until the age of six.

206. How Lulie recites Psalm 1 while she waits on my bed for discipline. How she loves the words before she even knows what they mean.

207. How husband corrects Lulie, "Honey, that's just not what people like us do." Like us, identity.

208. Husband's never ending strength for a job well done.

209. How he preaches: Work at everything as if working for the Lord, not men. And how then, on the longest day of his week, he comes home and rearranges the basement every which way. For me.

210. A tall tower of watermelon cubes.

211. The cradle Gramma made when I was a baby. Myra sleeps in it now.

212. That all my children have clothes and shoes enough for winter.

213. How when I get a scratch I just put a little Neosporin on and never worry that it will grow infected and make me lose a limb.

214. That cousins make good family and good friends.

215. Great decorating advice.

216. That I even get to worry about decorating instead of just staying alive.

218. My feet now cold that will carry me to baby and then bed.