Simple Gifts

When Yukon texts me, I sometimes panic. Often in a hurry and failing to realize I read between the lines a teensy-bit too much, his fast messages like "Call plz" send me scrambling for the telephone, especially this week. This past month. Okay, for a long time.

We're officially seven months from the date of Yukon's accident that broke his elbow and forever changed our lives. We're three weeks from the latest surgery to unfreeze stubborn joints that, happily, seem to be staying mobile. And now we're three hours from the text message.

"Call me plz."

I did, gripping the phone with a sweaty hand, hoping and praying that what he had to say would be the beginning and not a U-turn from the past weeks and months of utter confusion and pain for all of us. I took a deep breath as Yukon's deep voice answered his cell phone, skipping my usual greeting and offering a query of "Well?"

"Everything's just great!" The words practically tumbled out of his mouth and into my willing ears; and it was. An ultrasound showed no blood clot and no veinous residual from previous clots. He'll have to be careful for long flights, and the risk factor, while low, is still present, but for one who is lucky to be walking the planet upright, that was more than enough good news.

Then he started to cry.

"I'm just so relieved," this unbelievably courageous father, son, and husband said. "I didn't want to worry anybody else, anymore."

The Aaron Copeland CD in my stereo began to play a favorite melody as we reaffirmed our "better/worse, richer/poorer, sickness/health" vows to one another over the telephone, a fitting ending to Yukon's best day, ever...

"Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be-

And when we find ourselves in the place just right

It will be in the valley of love and delight."

Deep breath, Yukon. We did it.