First Time Ill as a Single Woman Alone

I have a position as a hospice chaplain three days a week. This ministry involves visiting the dying in their homes, nursing homes and hospitals. So even though I do not have paid sick leave, I know that when I get ill I must stay home.

Monday I felt chills in the evening. Tuesday morning I awoke with diarrhea like I have never had. It was horrible both Tuesday and Wednesday. Less today but I did not want to work until the stool is firm. I called the MD once again who said, "Pepto Bismol and Gatorade. This is the best prescription."

So I have been able to take the paper off the floor between my bed and the bathroom, but I am still housebound. I have to get better before next Tuesday as I am to fly to DC for the premier of "Fighting for Life" a documentary in which Jason and I are interviewed while we were at Walter Reed.

I feel good enough to begin unpacking which is a nightmare. I, on a good day, am totally unorganized. This is chaos laid out on the floor, in and out of boxes. Like my life, chaos in and out of marriage. Chaos emotionally during marriage; now in a new emotional place unfamiliar with its possibilities. Unfamiliar for the first time I am permitted to put myself-my needs first. I have never honestly done that my whole life especially in my marriage. It was always "What does Dow want?" over the needs of my own feelings or the needs of my children and their feelings. Now I am accountable to no one but myself. I now stand alone in the winds of time with my Godde.

I once had a dream image of standing on a grassy plain with blue sky above. I was dressed in the robes of Jesuit priest, a tree to the left of me, I was looking ahead into the future. The wind was blowing my robes and cape. (They wear a black cape, at least they used to in the pictures I saw.) That is how I feel now. In my priesthood, standing in the winds of eternity, my future before me.