For All of My Readers Who Are Sick and Have No Kleenex…

…I hear you. I understand.

My daughter Rebecca was supposed to write an epic post for me today on why sometimes Christians paint childhood too much like “children are inherently evil and need to be taught to obey” rather than “children are fun but need guidance.” When you look at how Jesus treated children, he embraced them and praised them. And I think sometimes our focus on making kids aware of sin may be off by a few years, given the age at which moral reasoning develops.

It is going to be an epic post.

But currently Rebecca is sick as a dog.

Well, actually, her dog is quite healthy. But she is not. Here’s her dog:

And here she is. When the Kleenex is gone.

And yesterday, as I was trying to clean up the blog and delete some superfluous posts, I ran across a post that I wrote way back in March 2009, right before the SARS virus broke out in Ontario (I still think we were the ones who brought it here). And it just made me laugh.

So I thought I would post it again, for all of you who are feeling lousy to hopefully chuckle at, too. I know it’s that time of year, and I hope not too many of you are down with the flu. But if you are, I’ve been there (and I’m very glad Rebecca no longer lives near me so that she can’t give me her germs! 🙂 )

Once upon a time there was a nasty bug. He was green, and mean, and very, very strong. And he saw Katie, and he thought, “she is the perfect tool. I shall invade her body, and through her, I shall conquer that family.”

And the virus began its work. Katie started hacking. And as she hacked, she hugged her mom. And she asked to cuddle. And she shared airspace. And she shared that virus.

And then I started hacking. And hacking. And hacking. Husband, who is a doctor, said, “it is only a virus. You will get better.”

But he did not know the virus’ powers. The virus invited bacteria into the lungs, and the doctor said, “my, you have pneumonia.” And she gave me drugs. Good drugs. And I loved her.

My husband laughed. “Those will do nothing! It is only a virus!”, for he did not see the bacteria that was invading my body, and surreptitiously invading his.

And finally, on Saturday, he succumbed. His fever was dangerously high. His oxygen saturation was dangerously low. And after some time in the hospital, he emerged with drugs to fight the double pneumonia which the initial virus had caused.

But the virus was not done. For it said, “there is still one more member of the family. We shall get the older sister, too!”.

And so I slept in the spare room Saturday night, checking on one child with a high fever in one room, and one husband barely breathing in the other. The child slept for 36 hours straight. The husband went into work today.

But I still feel like crap. My cough is better, but the flesh and the body and the Kleenex are weak. And they are warring against my spirit, saying, “it is better just to die.” The virus wants to win.

My spirit says, “No! There are good things in this life, like chocolate, and I must experience them some more!” But the body says, “Aaarrrrrghh, cough cough cough, aaarrrrgh.”

And hence, blogging may be light. I think I shall go die now. Hopefully I shall be resurrected soon, and will be back to my normal self.