Two weeks ago yesterday, my husband had open-heart surgery. It was planned although it had been a surprise that he needed it. He scheduled the surgery at a hospital 90 minutes from our home because it was the only hospital in the state that could perform this rare type of surgery. We were nervous but also knew he would have the surgeon who had done more of these than anyone in the state and, as it turns out, probably more than anyone in the world.

Because the hospital was so far from home, we also booked a hotel right across the street for Cody, my mom, and me to stay in during Chuck’s recovery in the hospital. Cody was thrilled – the hotel had a pool AND a small basketball court!

The day of the surgery, I wanted to stay with Cody as much as possible so after Chuck was wheeled to the operating room, I went back to the hotel to wait. I received text messages from the hospital throughout the next 3 1/2 hours with status updates and, at 3:42 pm, I received, “The patient’s procedure is starting to close.”

I called the unit coordinator to ask if I should immediately come to the hospital to be ready to talk to the surgeon but she said I could wait. Well, I really couldn’t wait. So, I started getting ready and walked over to the hospital cardiovascular surgery waiting room about 40 minutes later.

And I waited. And waited. For over an hour! The “closing” part of the surgery should only have taken about one hour so I started getting a little anxious that it had now been almost two hours since that last text. I had stayed calm up to that point enjoying the view out the floor-to-ceiling windows and taking pictures of the sunrays that were bursting through the clouds.

A unique perspective of looking at sunbeams streaming through the clouds as seen through a large window with hearts on it

Those rays breaking through felt like the storm was ending – the worst was over. I took almost a dozen pictures as the sun set and the rays changed and grew. This is the last picture I took and my favorite. For the previous pictures, I sat right next to the window and took a picture of just the sun. I also took a picture of the hearts on the window separately. But as I continued to sit and wait, I realized I loved the perspective of the whole window with the beams of light and splash of hearts framed by the window panes.

It finally dawned on me there was a surgery status board 15 feet from me around a corner. I walked over and saw Chuck’s surgery had finished a whole hour earlier! I sat taking pictures for an hour while he was in the ICU already. I decided that was a gift from God, an hour to just sit and enjoy the sun before the next few weeks of helping Chuck with his recovery.

Then Chuck had a stroke, the day after surgery, almost exactly two weeks ago from when I am typing this.

And what I saw in that picture changed.

Now I see the calm before the storm.