 Yale Youngblood |
I can’t help but count the month of August as special. It is in August that I get to celebrate my dad’s birthday—he’s 80 this go-round, for those counting the festive balloons at home.
It is August during which I mark my wedding anniversary. Indeed, 31 years ago the lovely former Susan Richtman chose to say “I do” rather than “Wait, what am I getting myself into?!,” thus spawning the most meaningful relationship—and friendship—I’ve ever known.
This August, I get to welcome my first grandchild. The sonograms said it will be a grandson. I sorely hope they were correct, given that I’ve already purchased him a baseball glove and have all but broken it in, in anticipation of the moment we get to have our first catch.
AND IT WAS AUGUST ...
August 2, 2006 to be exact, that changed the way I view life forever. Some of you know the story—I’m sure I’ve told it enough. I had been wrestling with a toothache for several days, had in fact gone to a doctor during the preceding weekend to get antibiotics in an attempt to stave off the infection long enough to get to a dentist the following week.
And then ...
The nutshell version of my tale goes like this: I awoke before the crack of dawn on Aug. 2 because, well, because my face had swollen to pumpkin proportions and because I decided that the fact that I had lost the ability to swallow might be a bad thing.
There was a very rapidly maneuvered trip to the hospital.
There were several emergency room doctor visits. There was a CT-scan. There was the decision to do emergency surgery. There was the surgery.
And then ...
ACTUALLY ... I can’t tell you what the “and then” was, not first-hand, anyway. I can’t because I was in a medically induced coma for nearly a fortnight as doctors and nurses and family and friends did all they could medically and spiritually to see that I might one day get to recall the nutshell version of my tale. The toll for my experience was two teeth, 26 pounds and virtual loss of my dexterity.
When I finally awoke, I couldn’t so much as move a fork to my mouth to eat, not that I wanted to eat the pureed food on my diet anyway. But the toll isn’t the important part of the nutshell version of my tale. The moral is. And the moral is that while I came very close to dying, I didn’t die. Consequently, each time I open my eyes to a new morning, I realize just how precious life is. And I say a prayer of thanks every day.
Especially every day in August.
yyoungblood@gie.net
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