Urgency with inner tumult, that’s what I felt when Dayle was very ill, especially when she was having heart arrhythmia that was frightening her and when she woke so dehydrated that she couldn’t move. I wanted something done NOW! I wanted the doctors and nurses to feel and act with the same kind of urgency. Of course they don’t.

Not only do they not share my turmoil of urgency, they shouldn’t. Doctors have to act with urgency, but it can’t be the kind with inner emotional turmoil, or they would be less effective. I found myself in the moment wanting the doctors to be rushing the way my emotions were rushing. But even when they acted with urgency, it was a calm, controlled kind. I could only appreciate that when I was calm again myself.

But there’s more. Not only shouldn’t the doctors share my tumultuous urgency, they can’t share it. If I have the same emotional reaction to seeing Dayle in serious health problems as people who don’t know her, then what can I say of my love for her? The doctors and I should have different reactions; that’s what is good, natural and proper.

I struggled to let everyone have their healthy, normal and helpful reactions to Dayle’s illness in its acute moments – to understand that my turmoil as a husband was my legitimate reaction and mine alone.

It was mine to take to the Lord who welcomed me with my tumultuous urgency. But it was not mine to shove down the throats of others.