The writer recalls an Easter weekend with her family after recovering from a stroke. A meditation on home, family, history, and recovery:
The brain strike didn’t kill my faith; my respect for God was not dependent upon good times and smooth sailing. Maybe the oxygen deprivation damaged my ability to deeply believe in anything, or maybe it increased my capacity for believing a little bit in everything, so that God and Jesus now share space on my hard drive with Yahweh or Allah; with Buddha or Mohammad or Krishna, or with the Love, the Light, the Universe. But I no longer have room in my brain for the Devil or his equals; the only real monsters now are old age, poverty, sickness and death—what else is there to fear?
Someone changes the music in the house; now it’s “Smile.” Leaving the cowboys behind for Nat King Cole. Someone is in bad shape today. Or maybe it’s only a prelude to the dance tunes that follow this track on a playlist I’m pretty sure we’ve heard a few times this weekend. I make a mental note: watch for the tapping feet, listen for the fidgety fingertips on the tabletops, and find the one who needs to dance today. I scratch the clipper-shy terrier behind his half-ear, enter the house unnoticed, and shut the door on the Sleeping Ute.
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