A threshold awaits.
Once Dreamer’s quintuple bypass surgery is scheduled, we spend an anxious week teetering on this sobering, irreversible borderline.
“Open heart surgery,” a former O.R. nurse tells us, “is a death experience.”
To mend his heart, they will stop his heart.
I’m facing my biggest fear: losing my husband of almost 44 years. A line we never imagined has been drawn. Will we cross over safely?
“We dodder through our days as if they [are] our surest belongings,” John O’Donohue writes. “No day belongs to us. Each day is a gift.”
“A threshold,” O’Donohue continues, “is not an accidental line. It is an intense frontier . . . a dividing line between the past and the future.”
Crossing over, you’re changed.
As in: braving that new job. Surviving a church split. A move. Failure of projects, or friendships. Unwanted divorce.
Some thresholds are forced upon us. Some, we seek. Always, we choose.
I recently gave Dreamer this card, designed by Adrienne Hedger.
A threshold can be exciting, a gateway to a new destination. You lay plans, gather maps, pack yourself snacks.
A threshold can feel like a threat. Something must die, or be left behind.
“Courage and trust” help us cross over the “. . . shoreline of an unknown realm,” O’Donohue says.
To which I would add, the earnest prayers of others—like yourselves—which, pre-surgery, have helped us sleep at night, and reel in our dread, by day.
A threshold also acts as an invitation. A glimpse of fresh terrain: physical, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual.
As I write this, memory dredges up a watery scene from my youth:
“Your lake’s kinda small,” the popular, blue-eyed blond said.
Dismay rounded my pre-teen shoulders. I’d been hoping she’d stay the night.
My dad looked up from steering our boat. “Have you heard of shoreline stretcher?” he asked.
“Um . . . no-o-o-o,” she said. “How does it work?”
She had peaked his Gullibility Meter. Tongue-in-cheek, Dad described a coarse powder that homeowners sprinkled along the shore, at dusk.
“Wow! Can we take another boat ride tomorrow, Mr. B?”
Thus the Cool Girl decided to sleep over.
Next morning we went wading.
Not only was she a good sport about Dad’s practical joke, she became my good friend. A small threshold was crossed together, eased by laughter.
Now, post-surgery, our daily landscape looks different. There is pain. The walker. The siege of fatigue.
There’s also laughter. (see “Check Out Day”Caring Bridge.)
Having crossed our threshold safely, now as never before we know life is a gift. We are changed. Our shores have been stretched.
We want to live these days consciously, attuned to O’Donohue’s “undertow of possibility, always at work.”
Did I mention Dreamer is already planning our next trip?
“A life that continues to remain on the safe side of its own habits and repetitions, that never engages with the risk of its own possibility, remains an unlived life” (O’Donohue).
Are you facing a sea change? Friends, wherever you stand, however you proceed, may you cross over safely.
As for us, your ongoing prayers and presence, cards and donated meals, continue to guard, heal, and nourish our spirits. Providential. And practical.
Like a helmet. And a tiny shopping cart.
What threshold is presenting itself to you, or someone you love?
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I love this post, Laurie, and the huge wave of hope and optimism flowing through your words. The card you bought for Dreamer is superb! It suggests most of life’s thresholds and rocky terrain and can be traversed with a hard hat for protection and a shopping trolley to capture good things along the way. Sounds like prayer to me, with a hefty dose of gratitude for those unexpected blessing gifts we encounter! It’s lovely to read your poetic words again, my friend, and to hear the relief threaded through them. May rich blessings accompany your walk together as you join hands to cross this threshold and anticipate all God has got planned for you in future days. Keeping both of you in my prayers. xo
Joy, I do love that card. It made me laugh out loud when I read it in the store. Dreamer laughed aloud when he opened it. And I love your interpretation of the words and image, comparing it to prayer.
wishing “rich blessings” to you and your beloved as you, too, share the daily, incremental steps of recovery. May it be full and lasting!
Always love your reflections, Laurie, what a joy it is to have a poet as a friend. You always òen fresh windows jnto life. Could you please give me the source of the O’Donohue references?
Richard, your kind words feel like a spring breeze moving over my soul on this cold rainy day. Thank you.
All the quotes come from “To Bless the Space Between Us,” by John O’Donohue. If you click on his name in the post (highlighted in green letters), it will link you to the write-up on Amazon.
I ordered it from our library some time ago, and a copy came in for me a few weeks ago, during our current adventure. Talk about perfect timing. 🙂 Blessings on you two today!
Congratulations and blessings to you both on crossing this threshold. Laurie, the way you write of your experience is a great encouragement. Thank you. May God continue to bring healing.
April, it’s lovely to hear this encouragement from a fellow author and blogger. Thank you for celebrating Grace with us in this perilous crossing!
Laurie, I am so glad the threshold was safely crossed…I wish you both strength for each hour of each day as healing continues. Roxanne
Roxanne, thank you. It really is an hour by hour journey. I appreciate your good wishes so much.
Beautiful Laurie,
So good to hear your ‘voice’ here. I loved this one! Hugs to every Klein!
Katherine, my dear friend, thanks for reading and sending those hugs.
So many thresholds! Thank you for encouragement for the journey.
Kelly, I’m so glad you found encouragement here. Crazy how the lines get drawn and sometimes hairpin turns appear when we least expect them.
May hope smooth the way before you. And? I get this goofy picture as I type/pray that phrase: an Olympic curling match, and a broom wielded on your behalf, sweeping clear the path ahead of you . . .
Oh, precious friend. Typing here in the Centrum at Grunewald with tears welling up…
My threshhold–knowing my limits 🙂 “I’m going to write the rough draft of my book while I’m away for a week.”
Then God helped me do some recalibrating, reminding me who’s in charge.
Continued prayers for you both.
love,
Jody, I can picture you there, in that wonderful place that inspires and nourishes creatives like yourself. Here’s to the tender (often hidden) gifts offered to us by our limitations, and the wonders wrought by divine recalibration. Holy times.
Praise God you and Dreamer have crossed the threshold safely! Continued prayer for daily improvement, moving you closer to that next adventure. P.S. Loved that card you found for Dreamer. Whimsical, with a hint of wisdom!
Nancy, thank you so much for your ongoing prayers. It means so much to me. This road would be harder without friends like you alongside. We are really grateful.
I adore that card, so perfect for him. He laughed aloud when he read it.
“now as never before we know life is a gift”. That’s sounds like a good place to be. You’ve paid a price to gain that gift, and it’s a little edgy, a stimulating awareness of life’s mystery.
A very good place to be. And yes, at steep cost, but oh, I am grateful to glimpse at least the hemline of Mystery! Love you!
I just took a quick snowshoe hike on our “loop” my man this morning. The snow is still pretty deep and icy back there. Wasn’t it about this time of year last year when you first came to visit? Spring seemed a lot closer, then, with patches of bare earth emerging on the snow trail. As Dreamer will need to take “baby steps” toward healing, hopefully he will accompany you on your next visit. We have a lot of nice local hikes that he would enjoy. We are keeping you both in our prayers.
I can picture it. That weekend with you is a memory I cherish. Was it really a year ago?! We still have scatter rugs of snow, and ice trails where I snowshoed, some months ago now. I must remind myself to watch for the buttercups.
Thank you both for your ongoing prayers. Recovery is a slow, halting process for a man who loves to be on the move.
And yes, I would love to bring him your way when the time is right. That would be a joy.
Well, good! We would love to have you come! I can’t even imagine the inner resources required to climb out of such a health setback, knowing how much he LOVES being on the go in the wilderness. Thankfully, he has a good woman, and a big God to love and encourage him in this journey!…. Along with all the friends and relatives rooting for him!
You’re right. It’s a long road ahead yet. Today he walked laps in the house for 20 minutes without his walker. Another step forward in the healing process! We are so blessed and encouraged by all the prayer support and love. And, as you say, our Big God. 🙂
Beautiful and encouraging words dearest Laurie. My threshold is learning to walk again after this bicycle accident. But in the meantime the lessons are invaluable. We will continue to pray for dreamer.
Gena, I am on your sidelines, waving my hat over my head — in spirit, when I can’t be there in person — cheering you on. You’ll not only walk again, you’ll skip and tap and hopscotch with your grandkids. Thus saith your forever friend and occasional Oracle. 🙂