Sometimes when you’re stoic and stubborn, you might be a bit surprised when things take a bit of time to process.

One year ago today, Matt had been in the hospital a week and the battle to get him to a hospital Outside was underway.

While Covid held our hospital in its icy grip -the whole nation’s hospitals for that matter…thousands of patients isolated and alone in hospital beds without loved ones near…the team working on Matt was a hodge podge group of overworked, temporary medical workers; doctors, nurses, and case managers shipped up from the Lower 48, surgeons unwilling to do cardio thoracic surgeries due to not knowing the OR; case managers unwilling to do any sort of work that required a sense of urgency or that crossed time zones.

Matt was a low maintenance patient because even though the infection was actively ravaging his heart tissues, the hospital had already established they would not be doing the high risk surgery he was most likely going to need.

It was easy to start his round of antibiotics, monitor his vitals, and then forget about him.

That sounds harsh, but that is what happened. He was caught up in a quagmire of insurance approvals and paperwork sitting too long on desks…his last week at the hospital, he wasn’t even assigned a nurse. They put him on the roster of the charge nurse, who only came if Matt needed anything.

Because there was never enough staff, he went fourteen days without a shower.

The fight to get him to Mayo was a ten-day ordeal, and it wasn’t until the embolli of his infection started breaking off, entering his blood stream and causing his heart to arrest that his shambly medical team finally realized they needed to do what I had been begging them to, and they said “we gotta get this boy outta here.”

When God send a jet for my Matthew on my birthday, it wasn’t until I was taxiing on the outbound plane to Minnesota and got the text from his flight team that they were wheels down and Mayo-bound that my body let loose with quiet sobs of relief, and for the first time in nineteen days, I knew my husband was going to live.

The Mayo team had him studied from his hair to his toe nails that first week, and six days after he landed, one of the best cardio thoracic surgeons in the world used his delicate and brilliant hands to snip and stitch my husband’s rugged, pure heart and undo all the damage the infection had done.

I had to write about it all the while, and in writing I was processing. Sorting. Praying. Thanking.

When they finally let me see him ten hours later, he was heavily sedated and wanting to sit up and pull out his vent upon hearing my voice.

It took me and two nurses and another shot to quietly calm him down enough to sleep once again, and that was the saddest night I’ve ever spent in my whole life.

I won’t ever forget my big strong husband, helpless and hooked up to a million machines, a quiet tear streaming down his temple, just wanting to heave and ho like he always does, but not having control of his body enough to come up from the depths and see his beloved.

It’s funny what a writer’s heart remembers, and some smells, sounds, and moments will take me right back and I am almost there, reading the Psalms with Matt or visiting with the day’s nurse.

Just over twelve hours after his surgeon jump-started Matt’s big heart back up, the angels in ICU spent an hour of their shift packing their patient up for the 20-foot road trip, and he and his entourage started up the hall for his first walk on his new rebuild.

The brilliance and resilience God built into mankind will never cease to amaze me.

I flew home with him ten days later and we cashed in miles for first class, and three months to the day that he had received two brand-new carbon valves into his heart and some Bondo on his aorta, he was back to work in the oilfield, fixing up the oil rigs just like his surgeon fixed up his heart.

This month I’ve spent a lot of time in reflection and when I shared with one of my dear sisters that things feel off this fall, she knows me well enough to know that I probably didn’t take the time I needed to process the trauma of what we endured.

How long does it take though?

I have my husband with me while there are far too many who look at an empty pillow across the bed and long for their mate whose time on this earth was cut too short.

How long does it take for your feet to feel firm on the ground after coming off stormy seas?

A whole year and we have loved on our babies and my 4-H kids and our church family and each other.

He’s turned 50, I’ve turned silver, and we’ve long since turned our attention toward getting our normal back to normal.

Yet still.

Maybe it takes awhile.

Maybe being stoic also means being slower, and maybe being stubborn means allowing yourself the time you need.

Maybe.

It’s been one year since.