Longfellow writes:

"In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity."

After months of knowing I would eventually need to find a way to slow down, my body finally did that for me. I was in the ER, closed-in behind cream-colored curtains for hours, trying to maintain the collected and pleasant calm I usually assume whenever I approach a medical facility. Only this time I was not there for one of my children, and the arms they were poking were mine.

There came this moment when I called my husband on the cell phone and whispered across the line... "get me the hell out of here".

The doctors came in and stared at me, concern foremost on their faces. It actually touched me to see their gentleness, and I tried to force myself to submit. "I want to go home now. I will forgo the medication. No, I don't want that, please. I want to go home...now. I need to take care of my children."

Really? I watched as they considered that coming from a woman who could not stand up.

What do women do who are stuck in those places for months at a time? What can possibly keep them from going insane? The day after I began to feel better, I awoke and betook myself to the balcony wrapped in blankets. I let my eyes scan the valley and drink in the beauty of the outdoors. The light; the leaves clapping their tiny hands; the birds singing. The simplicity of the outdoors seemed to me the loveliest thing I'd ever seen. And I sat, enjoying the silence, for hours.

And then I read:

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God - and the Word was God.

Before the pain and before the sadness, was God. Who made all things for our eyes. Who made all this magnificent simplicity for me.