I’m sick as a dog (again). My nose is running like a tap; and my head feels like a balloon has been inflated inside me, expanding under my cheeks and also between my teeth and out my eyes. My kneecaps are achy and my back is sore. I’d like to tell you that I’m miserable because I kind of am. But the truth is, I don’t mind it. In secret, I kind of like it.
I take good care of myself. The time under the weather is an easy excuse to slow way down and intentionally nurse and dote on myself. I took a nap in the chair and made chicken soup. I read an article* which featured a recipe for congee, a soft-cooked rice dish with ginger and a runny egg. I made the warming dish and kept myself cozy and hydrated all day. Washed my hair with raspberry shampoo and oiled my skin with homemade tallow and salve.
The week leading up to my near-death experience, also to be referred to as the common cold, had been a rough one. My dad has been staying with me, sleeping on a cot in the living room, taking up space in my home and heart. He suffered a stroke this summer, and has been struggling with his memory and cognition since the (what he would claim was alleged) stroke. We’ve got reminder notes written in the house, but still ask and answer the same questions upwards of ten times a day. It’s been hard for Dad to recall names, conversations, and simple directions. It’s been hard for me to be a witness.
What hasn’t been hard for me is hearing how good of a cook I am. How patient I am. How happy and proud he is of me. How comfortable he feels around my friends, and how tasty the lattes are at my work. It hasn’t been hard to receive his compliments or to belly laugh with him watching old cartoons. It isn’t difficult or challenging to listen to him call Honey “baby girl” or eavesdrop on him telling her how good of a dog she is while he slips her a piece of cheese or a club cracker.
When the stroke first happened and I found myself looking after my dad in this new capacity, I felt resentful. Angry even, that I was offering to him the care I never received myself. Last Wednesday, I set up his cot in the living room and made the bed with care. The cotton sheets over two soft mattress pads. (Admittedly, his accommodations are quite humble–but not without love.) The same plain white hospital blanket from his three-day stay at Marshfield this summer. And a purple quilt made by my grandma, his mother. There was no resentment in the making of that bed. It was a generational sandwich with dad in the middle, slathered with extra mayo and thick cut tomatoes. Grandma Haddie and I, two pieces of pumpernickel rye, squeezed Dad with the kind of love that he’s always felt, but maybe not always known how to show. What a beautiful honor it is to share this tender time with Dad. The stroke has made him a sillier and softer version of himself. And, in a lot of ways it’s done the same to me.
Today we mourned the last of the chicken soup–it was exceptionally good–and watched endless episodes of Bob’s Burgers. I feel so thankful that the two of us are in good hands during this really difficult to navigate time. And I’m very thankful that those hands are my own.
*Eng, Sophia. “Nourishing the New Mother, Ancestral Wisdom for the Fourth Trimester and Beyond.” Homestead Living, January/February 2026, 30-37.