Stoppage Time

On the mind yesterday, and friends reminded me with the picture, which is in my files, marked "MeAtPlane18Jan2011" as we boarded friends' jet for the hour and 45 minute flight from Panama City to Cleveland's lakefront airport and the short drive to the campus of Cleveland Clinic.

That Time, I'd characterized it based on some soccer terms. Stepping into the airplane, I'd left Regular Time behind me forever, started Stoppage Time as the period from boarding the plane until the day in early February 2011 when I checked out of Cleveland Clinic and back on the plane. Plus Time, or +Time with a cross, started when I got back on the plane, the rest of my life as extra Time, grace Time.

It was a bitter, cold day in Cleveland, snow on the ground, bit windy, Tuesday. Next morning and for the rest of the week I went through a battery of tests prep to open heart surgery, riding the Clinic's shuttle bus from the hotel to the heart institute, and back.

Three months earlier, mid-October 2010, I'd been diagnosed with major heart issues and given a prognosis of "two to five months" to live. A few friends banded together, took charge of me, got things going, and saved my life! Basically, Carolyn, John, Rayford, Mary, Bill and June. 

Couple of things I remember about the battery of tests, one is that every nurse who drew blood had quite a difficult Time finding a vein, so there was lots of sticking and prodding and calling for another nurse and then a supervisory nurse to give it a try. 

The other thing is the Time, almost an hour, I spent in the enclosed MRI tunnel. I'd been in an MRI years earlier, it's way worse than being in a dive dive dive submarine. I resolved to close my eyes on sliding into the MRI tube, to not open them until I was out, and I'd come up with a distantly remembered afternoon at the Jetties at PCB with a friend in May 1953 after we'd completed all our final exams for Bay High graduation, to run through my mind and distract myself from where I was. I was 17 years old then, 75 years old that week in Cleveland, and It worked for me.

Another thing I used to occupy my mind was remembering the previous summer 2010, a very happy Time for me, that I'd spent the entire summer supervising maintenance and repair work on the Cove School building, now the Bill Lloyd Building of Holy Nativity Episcopal School. Amy snapped that shot of me on the roof of the auditorium building, and it's one of my favorites! Nearly fifteen years ago!

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Sunday morning now, 19 Jan 2025, we're to have a visiting supply priest at church this morning, Linda and I are going to the eight o'clock service.  

RSF&PTL

T89&c