Thoughts From A Sick Bed.................by Barbara H.

I mean the kind of sick that put me in bed and I could only get up to go to the bathroom and then back to bed.

The kind of sick like when I was little kid and my mom put me to bed and made me special chicken soup or buttered toast and tea and that was only after I upchucked all day and she would put a cold cloth on my head and would tell me I'd be okay.

On top of this just a day before I got sick my hubby became ill, I got him to the doctor's office, stopped at the drugstore to fill three prescriptions, then home where he promptly headed for his overstuffed chair (his favorite place whether sick or not) and I suddenly feeling ill, went to bed.

After we both slept, we realized we were in no shape to attend our family reunion that was to be held in two days, so I called  hubby Bill's, sister Anabel, so she wouldn't worry if we didn't show up. We haven't missed a family reunion in seventeen years. And at this point we didn't even care that we were going to miss it because we felt so terrible. Better to miss than to spread whatever physical horror this was to the rest of the family.

After making one more phone call to our nurse daughter, we hunkered down, took our medicine and rested. Nurse daughter checked in during the next two days and we gradually came through the miserable symptoms and were seriously thinking since we've already been sick with what seemed to be a flu, that we probably don't need to get a flu shot which is due next week. (Just kiddin I'll get it because I know there are different strains of the flu.)

There is only so much one can do while recuperating. And when I began feeling better (but still not well enough to welcome visitors or go out) I honed in on Gather and read up on what others were doing while I was being sick.

Just a little while ago I came across a photo  of a baby a proud Gramma posted and the picture was so clear and dewy looking (You know that beautiful, soft, innocent dewy look a brand-new baby has?) that I sent in a comment saying the baby was so sweet  and precious, I could almost smell her fragrance thru the post.....

That thought made me think further that it would be wonderful if we could bottle feelings about the wonders of life so we could open up the lid and benefit from the smell or feeling when life was so shitty that we couldn't do much else.

For instance: we could bottle the smell of a baby's neck when it is first born (I call that the fragrance of Angels that is only detectable once with each baby and disappears after the first bath) the fragrance of our first girlfriend's perfume or first boyfriend's deodorant or just THEIR smell.

The feeling we have: When we first fall in love, on the occasion of our first REAL kiss, we pass our driver's test, get hired for our first job, find something we lost and never thought we'd find again, when we see our favorite person coming toward us, when we were kids and got a first puppy or kitten, came down on Christmas morning and got every single thing we asked of Santa, graduated from school, got accepted at a college, or just the feeling or smell of something wonderful like freshly baked bread, the first sight of a beach or an ocean, the first rose of summer, or etc., etc., etc.

We could even print pretty labels and put them on capped empty bottles and just offer them to people so they can fill them with their own fantasies. We couldn't charge them anything though because that would be cheating charging someone for an empty bottle.  Still you could fill it with anything you wanted and it would all be unique and one of a kind and would be as good as your imagination could make it.

What would you fill yours with?

When I think further on it all I think right now I'd fill mine with thanks that this illness seems to have run its course and I'm back to having such silly thoughts.

copyright.09.21.2009 Barbara H.