By this time tomorrow, I’ll have news of Richard’s condition after surgery. For tonight, I’m posting to say thank you to all of your for your love, prayers, candles, meditations, good thoughts, tonglen, metta and healing energy in all forms.
And to ask you if you are able, please hold the images below in your hearts tomorrow beginning at 7:45 a.m. Rocky Mountain Time, when Richard goes into the operating room. We learned late this afternoon that his surgical team is planning on perhaps cutting out much of his right temporal lobe in order to remove what looks like not just one, but several fast-growing tumors. (“You can live without your right temporal lobe,” said the neurosurgery resident briefing us. “People do.” That’s because you’ve got two–one on the left, and one on the right. She drew a map of the brain and then went through the MRI images to show us what parts do what, and what he’ll be missing.)
So when he comes to in the ICU tomorrow evening, he’ll still be the Richard I love, the one striding happily through the paths at Denver Botanic Gardens yesterday in the photo above, but his brain will be missing a rather larger chunk of real estate than had imagined. He’s healthy and he’s left-brain dominant, both of which bode very well for his eventual recovery. But the journey ahead is clearly not going to be simple or quick.
So I’m asking that you join me in keeping these images close to your hearts tomorrow. My wish for Richard is that he comes through this journey with all of his natural grace, creativity, formidable intellect and compassionate heart intact, rising through it like the Henry Moore sculpture above, our favorite of the ones in the exhibition at the Gardens, rising in such seemingly effortless curves out of the tranquil surface of the biggest of the Gardens’ waterlily ponds.
Oh, and that his sense of humor comes through too–laughter will surely make this journey we call “life” so much lighter.