When the doctors and nurses tell you that recovery is not a straight line, but many twists and turns, and that every day is different, believe them, I am learning it is the truth. I had some clear and earnest ideas about today, we slept late, drove to Williamstown to eat lunch at a Thai restaurant, walk around and visit the Williams College Museum, where there was a fiber exhibit Maria wanted to see.

Just after breakfast, I got upset and then I fell into the darkest hole yet in my month-long recovery from open heart surgery. I just plunged into darkness, I was exhausted, barely able to speak, depressed and discouraged, mono-syllabic and angry at the world. We went to Williamstown, I insisted, I really need to get out today and so did Maria and I just sank further and farther into this pit.

I got through lunch, but felt awful, fatigues, sweating, uncomfortable, I wasn’t sure if it was the diabetes, rocketing up and down since the surgery, or the surgery itself, and all my attendant medications. They tell you often that there will be bad days, but you never quite know why unless you head for the hospital, and I did not feel badly enough for that. My heart was not hurting or feeling pressure, this was something else, something related but mysterious, something that happens. We walked a bit – it was hot, the sun is strong, I felt weaker and bleaker by the minute and then drove home after walking through the museum.

I think this was the worst day so far for me, the worst that I have felt, the least energy, the bleakest and most confusing emotionally. I felt as I had fallen off the edge of the earth. They said there would be days like this, there are. Here I am again, at the end of it, feeling strong and clear, writing this all down. Life is quite mysterious and wonderful.

Maria kept asking me if I wanted to go home, she was worried about the way I look. I didn’t want to go home, I wanted to finish what we started. I nearly passed out in the car, I slept all of the way home, too worn to speak, then lay down when we got home and slept for several hours. When I got up, I felt my head beginning to clear, some energy was returning. We went out to get some wine for Maria, and we decided to walk in the cemetery, I walked there for a mile or so, I began to return to myself, I saw some light in the hole.

I wanted to just cry today, to throw up my hands in despair and lament falling into this dark space. I wanted to call someone, but there is no one to call, really. Like fear, the black hole is just another space to cross, there is light on the other side. I felt badly for Maria, having to spend a whole day with such a slug, mired in tar and mud.

It is frightening to fall into such a deep and alien space, to be so weak and helpless, you don’t really know if you will ever come out of it. Some people, I am told, don’t. There is a great instinct to rest, a great instinct to get up and move. I do both. I ended up walking a few miles tonight and feeling much stronger and clearer. Tonight, we may watch a movie, I will finish a novel “Lobster Kings.” I have learned yet another lesson in the great instructional that is a near-death experience – heart disease.

My heart is beginning to make itself clear, even when the doctors are not.  Be patient, every day is different, this one was the worst, tomorrow will be a different.

Why, heart, I asked, are you doing this to me today? Listen, she said, you must let go of the idea that you control me and the world. Love, learn and let go. Accept today, embrace tomorrow. One day at a time, one step at a time.  Healing is a miracle and a mystery, it is beyond you, really. Go where it takes you. Each day, I will have a new lesson for you, pay attention and have faith, we are getting there together.