Fed by a tube

After a few weeks I finally write again.

Cause: an appendicitis.

All is well now, but what an experience...

In the beginning of August I felt a pain on the right lower side of my abdomen that wouldn't let me sleep. I thought it was gases because I had none of the symptoms of an appendicitis. Then it stopped. On my daughter's birthday, it came back again. The problem with this pain is I couldn't sleep. So I went to the hospital and after 12 hours without eating, the diagnostic came and I had to go to surgery.

You hope all goes well, but, in reality, you don't know until you wake up.

Therefore, no wonder that my first words were - literally "I'm alive!"

But since they made me a laparoscopy, filling me with air, that air makes breathing difficult. I knew I had to be fully aware of everything. I needed to be conscious and fight for breathing. And, spontaneously, I never thought the way to do it was... praying.

Praying was my act of being fully aware of myself.

In my condition, after an anesthesia, that says a lot about praying. It's a profound conscious act of being aware of what we are living and the experience of a presence that naturally impels you interact with. God.

I was completely at the mercy of others, namely, nurses. These are heroic people. You may think "It's their job!", and it is, but that doesn't make it less difficult. Actually, having realized the far more difficult cases surrounding me, especially with elder people, I always tried paying attention to the tone of my voice and never forgot to smile despite pain. Always went to the bathroom on my foot. Always available to help if someone needed. Being in a passive condition was - for me - an opportunity to love others more deeply. A lesson I take to everyday life.

For 48h I was fed by a tube. This got me thinking.

The world is a fragile place. Unless we actively interact with each other and the environment surrounding us nothing moves forward.

But what drives us?

Survival? Probably.

But why survive at all if the ultimate outcome is perishing?

What is the sense and meaning of everything?

When you're at the mercy of others, money doesn't matter. What you write, how famous you are doesn't matter. We don't think about these things when we're "ok", but when you experience being at the mercy of others, you realize that unless the world is feed by a tube with the grace of God, everything is senseless and meaningless.

This tube is the love we put in everything we do.

Every smile, gesture, word, listening can be an act of love despite your harsh condition. And my experience is I couldn't do it for myself. Only through God's discrete and silent presence. If we're made in God's image, maybe this is our vocation in the world: being a discrete and silent presence conveying the grace received by our Creator.

Not that we're doing a great job, but it's never too late to start again...