The Inconvenience of Love

I sit in my mother's room at the Heart Hospital tonight, watching her sleep. Tomorrow morning she'll undergo yet another cardioversion to get her heart pumping regularly, and later she'll discuss with her cardiologist her options: more procedures or a pacemaker?

I'm struck by how inconvenient love is. This attachment we have to our families, whether the families we're born into or the families we birth. 

As I watch my mother sleeping, I think of how my day - and the next few days or week to follow - has been unexpectedly uprooted, subject to change at a moment's notice. How my plans and my family's schedule have been thrown into chaos. I think of how inconvenienced was my mother, who was ready to harvest her large, bountiful garden. I think of my sister from Phoenix, who happened to arrive for a visit just the day before my mother went to the emergency room - how she now will spend her week caring for my dad, carting him back and forth to the hospital - rather than enjoy her time talking, laughing, and enjoying my parents' company in the country. I think of my husband, who must take up the slack at home while I care for my parents.

Yes, inconvenient. 

I look at my mother sleeping.

Inconvenient, yet oh so worthwhile.

Photo of heart-shaped leaf by David Paul Ohmer from here