Still Here
I wrote about the hospital. This is what I didn’t say about what it does to you over time.
I wrote about this last year while we were in the hospital.
I told the story as it was happening.
What I didn’t say then is what it does to you over time.
If you’re carrying something that doesn’t seem to end, this is for you.
This was not a normal hospital stay.
But we left normal many exits back.
We came for my wife to undergo two more surgeries, adding to her long list.
That turned into four months—and nine operations.
Gracie’s now at ninety-eight.
Yes, you read that right. Ninety. Eight.
Surgeries. Procedures. Anesthesia. ICUs. Step-down units. Physical therapy. Blood loss. Pain meds. Infections. Setbacks. Do-overs. You name it.
We passed absurd somewhere after surgery #50. But at #98? That’s when my mother said something over the phone that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about:
“This is so ridiculous … it has to be God.”
Not sarcasm. Not a joke. Just clarity—spoken down the line from a weary, faith-worn mother who’s watched us walk this road for decades.
Decades of the impossible becoming inevitable—and somehow survivable.
Nearly all of this traces back to a horrific car accident Gracie had in 1983—before I even met her. She collided with a cement abutment. Her injuries were catastrophic.
She was rebuilt as best as medicine allowed at the time and set on a lifelong path of orthopedic hardship. Eventually, she lost both legs. And the surgeries count mounted. By the time we were engaged, she was already at twenty-one operations. And it hasn’t slowed down since.
After nearly forty years as a caregiver, I thought I’d heard it all. But that one line from my mother?
That was theology dressed in civilian attire. And it was dead-on.
Because this level of hardship, this scale of endurance—it doesn’t make sense.
I have no spreadsheet to explain how we’re still upright.
Physically? We’re worn to the bone.
Emotionally? Charred.
Financially? Let’s just say there’s not a GoFundMe page big enough.
But spiritually?
Oddly anchored.
Don’t get me wrong—I’ve asked questions.
I’ve shouted prayers into parking decks.
I’ve clenched fists in hospital chapels.
I’ve stared at vending machines, not knowing what day it was, trying to remember the last time either of us slept.
I’ve wondered if heaven put me on hold.
And yet …
I’ve seen a different kind of math—the kind that doesn’t show up on spreadsheets. Heaven’s math.
Because when I tally the surgeries, I also have to count the grace.
The unexpected provision.
The absurd peace.
The kind of calm that defies diagnostics.
At one point during that stretch, the entire wound on her left leg dehisced when she sat up in bed, opening four inches wide and a foot long. I was reminded of why I’m a musician, not a surgeon. I quickly got the nurses into the room and directed them to call the surgical staff, all the while keeping Gracie calm. As I helped her recline back in bed, she held my hand with everything in her while crying and trying to breathe.
Telling her not to look down, I made eye contact with her while a team rushed to her side to address the wound. Not knowing what to do, I led her in the first chorus that came to my mind.
“In my life, Lord – be glorified; be glorified.”
Gracie sang with me, and then she took over—through gasps for breath:
“In my leg, Lord – be glorified; be glorified.”
The nurses and doctors were stunned. In their years, they’ve heard screaming, crying, and cursing—but no one had heard singing and asking God to be glorified in such a wound.
That’s not math that we understand.
It was so ridiculous to the human mind—it had to be God.
What I didn’t say then is what that kind of moment costs you over time.
