However

I reported in my last posting how much a little increase in confidence and hope means to one's view of life and to one's attitude toward life itself. I had been making progress from those dark days when I considered terminating my stay on earth. However, I chose to live, to keep trying, and it began to feel better and better.

But while I was progressing, I failed to notice how much my wife was going in the other direction. Both of us take anti-depressants, and she's been aware of her tendency toward depression since she was very young. Well, with the pressures of an inordinate amount of debt (which is our own doing) and a very stressful and difficult job (it's a job for someone 20-30 years younger), she decided last weekend that she simply couldn't cope anymore.

My wife ingested a month's worth of prescription sleep medication and lay down to die. Of course, I didn't know what she had done, as I had gone to bed early. But to her surprise, she awoke about the same time I did the next day, and groggily told me what she'd done. She said that she couldn't apologize, as she didn't expect to wake up. I called 911, and followed the ambulance to a major hospital in Minneapolis which has a psych ward, and that's where she is as I write, safe for now.

As if attempting suicide wasn't enough, she then came down with such a bad case of influenza that she had to be put on an IV, and the family session that we were to begin with has been postponed twice, probably until next Monday. When I delivered her glasses and some clean clothes to her today, she was still attached to the IV and looked so tired. There aren't words to describe how lousy I felt, but I was able to return a blown kiss and state my continued love for her. I probably will take a little break now, plan little or nothing, and wait for our uncertain future to begin unfolding. And yes, I am afraid.

We welcome all good thoughts.