This has been a period of waiting…first, with the rest of the world during quarantine. Second, a long period of waiting for Brad to come back home. These have been among the hardest days either of us has lived. CV-19 made these weeks ever so much harder. Yet during this time so many invaluable lessons have been learned – apart but together (as we talked for hours every day by phone.)

I drove Brad to the local hospital and dropped him off at the ER in the middle of the night a little more than 3 weeks ago. He had been having pretty bad left side pain for 4 days, and had gotten an X-ray and blood tests, but the results were confusing. Anti-biotics didn’t help. Finally I took him, giving him a last kiss and watching him walk into the ER tent alone, unable to go with him because of the CV-19 rules. Little did we know his appendix had ruptured 3 days earlier, and it would be 22 days and two surgeries before we saw each other again in person.

Waiting is hard. Waiting in isolation is indescribably challenging in that fears and uncertainties tend to snowball. For me, this seemed especially true during the dark hours of night. The prayers of many people bolstered both of us through this time, and for that we will be forever grateful.

The amazing thing is how much both of us would say we have grown through the experience. Although we wouldn’t want to repeat these last 22 days, we have to admit that God was faithful. He didn’t allow either of us to be actually ALONE. His presence and strength were available daily. And he worked through so many of you to bless us with words, calls, flowers, visits and gifts. One friend even came over (twice!) unasked to pick up the pesky gumballs which had built up in our yard! (At that news, Brad actually shed a tear!)

Again, today a favorite Holmes piece seems a good response. If we had a thousand tongues, all would be used today to thank God for bringing Brad home late yesterday! We collaborated as a family on the arrangement of this melody 20 years ago – using canonic repetition to represent a myriad of singers. Then we built in a drone duet for dad and TJ and one 5-part chord (on the word “JOY”) because TJ complained of always having to sing WITH someone and was getting old enough to want his own note! We also let his be the final voice in the repeated phrase at the end.

O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing!