F is for faith...or FAI-ting!

Dear Omma, 

Today you had your last udder (drain) taken out and are no longer a cow! (Sorry to call you a cow, Mother...you're actually beautiful like a bird.)

Just over two weeks ago, we brought you home after you'd been in the hospital for a month in total, first for your surgery and then because of complications in your recovery. Bringing you home, we were afraid that you'd end up right back in the ICU again, and more than a little overwhelmed by the instructions on how to care for you. What if we got it wrong? What if we didn't know how to do what's best for you? 

The first day home, I caught you staring out your window and when I asked what you were looking at, you said you were looking at how spring had arrived while you'd been in the hospital. You also looked with wonder at your own reflection in the mirror, asking yourself "Myung Sook (your Korean name), is that you?" 

The new normal still feels rather strange, doesn't it Mom? 

Through it all, you have not lost your smile...except when Dad gets a little over excited about checking your blood sugar and ends up pricking your fingertip like he's jamming a thumbtack into a bulletin board {mother/daughter facepalm}. Every text you send telling me how you're feeling and what you've eaten (and sometimes what you've passed) ends with "FAI-ting!", the Korean rally cry. 

Today, you cried though. Not from pain or fear, but with gratitude. As you'd put it, we've been blessed with having a care team headed by Dr. Clancy Clark, a surgeon who you trust and who we know cares about you as a patient. You cried as you thanked him for taking care of you, and in a classic Clark move, he continued to show you care as he put his arm around you. God bless Clancy Clark, his team, and his family.

You're a woman of faith, Mom, and although this has sometimes been a source of disagreement for us, I see the way that you recognize the silver lining first, the way in which your gratitude and not your fear is what overwhelms you, and the way that you are unwavering in your belief that you will heal. 

I don't know if I believe that God lets bad things happen for a reason, but I believe in you Mom. I believe in the good days we will have. 

I love you, Mom. 

Mom and me on her (second) discharge day from Wake Forest Baptist, more than a month after she was admitted. That smile tho!