While I don’t commute frequently, my drive is noticeably healthier when I’m filling the car with classical music rather than news or talk radio.  Rachmaninoff rather than Rachel Maddow truly calms my nerves and psyche in traffic. 

So last week on Interstate 5, as the initial chords of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite filled my aging Subaru, the sudden urge to cry took me by surprise.  I was inching past Alderwood Mall when the music prompted a flood of turbulent unsettled emotions instead of the usual endorphin-fueled calm. 

I quickly gave way to the need to just let it all go and found myself sobbing so hard I thought it might be best to pull off the road.  The suite’s captivating “Infernal Dance” pulled me into its vortex of frantic crescendos.  If you’re not familiar, in this section the magical Firebird, summoned by Prince Ivan, casts a spell on the evil sorcerer King Kashchei and his monstrous subjects, compelling them to perform a frenzied, savage, and ultimately exhausting dance. 

A savage, exhausting dance.  Wild swings of emotion.  Sounds like our lives these past three months. I quickly realized this commute had given me a much needed, albeit shocking, release from all that has been for Bruce and me in 2025. By the time I arrived home, I was slumped over the steering wheel sobbing but also feeing like I was re-entering my life. 

Our Split Screen Year

It’s been a spell, as my grandparents would say.  Less than three months after my open-heart valve replacement surgery, Bruce was hospitalized for an intestinal bleed.  Through most of an excruciating October, he persevered through blood transfusions, small bowel resection surgery, and a weeklong rehospitalization. 

Even as my Texas children and grandchildren were arriving at SeaTac to kick off a weekend celebrating my return to “normal” life, Bruce was navigating a bewildering, painful illness that onset out of the blue after a day of intense stomach cramps. 

In one of life’s most surreal split screens, the kids and I tried to enjoy a crisp fall weekend bumping around Seattle (at Bruce’s insistence) while I rushed to his hospital room after each outing.  We made food, walked the waterfront, chased after kids, and talked for hours, but in my head I was trapped in a nightmare, terrified about Bruce’s situation.  (Turns out they were too.) 

Eventually, most suffering passes.  And a door opens to wisdom.  There is an African proverb: “My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon.”  For me, the “moon” was much-needed perspective.  Having been plunged into two separate yet deeply shared and mirrored experiences with emergency rooms, endless tests, poking, prodding and painful surgeries, we are wiser and I believe humbler.  (Like a crash course in aging together!)

Every day, parents sit bedside as their children fight cancer or overdose, or cling to life after horrific accidents or violence.  Through my heart surgery Facebook group, I have chatted with a dad whose two-year old son underwent heart valve replacement surgery on the same day as me. 

It may sound cliché, but this year has given me much needed context.  Bruce and I have been blessed to flourish with minimal health problems for most of our 20-plus years together.  Quite literally out of nowhere it went to crap in 2025 but there’s no reason to believe our spell will continue in 2026.  

Fortunately for us, November has been infinitely kinder than October.  Bruce’s healing has been rapid after a slow start.  I had a mini-breakdown coming home to find him raking leaves and pruning bushes, thinking he was not ready.  But he was, and is, ready for more life!

Two gravely serious medical events in three months can twist one’s perspective about gratitude.  While I can’t predict the future, I’m certain Bruce and I will sit down to share turkey with our loved ones with tremendously grateful hearts.  Being a guest at our son and daughter-in-laws’ beautiful home is always a delight but this week it will have extra meaning and joy.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.  My hope is it will be as meaningful for you as it is for us.