A Story of a Valentine's Day And A Few Days That Followed - Part I

For better for worse, in sickness or in health

(Taken from Photobucket)

Valentine's day – a day which has captured the imagination of the entire world and has become something of a craze, hysteria, fad, a commercial opportunity - whatever you choose to call it. To some, it may be a day of great significance.  Why do I choose to talk about this day 5 days after it is over? I never bothered about it all my life. I have always wondered about the meaning of this much touted word “love” which seems to be bandied about so easily these days. However, this year the day came to me with a difference. It brought back the words of the wedding vows to me.

"I, take you to be my wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; and I promise to be faithful to you until death parts us".

I am not a Christian, but I love these vows as they are so meaningful and taken consciously by both the bride and the groom, knowing fully well, what it is that they are promising, the enormity and purport of the vow. It is taken in front of so many witnesses in front of the altar, in a language they clearly understand and cannot claim ignorance of. So neither can say later that they did not understand what he/she said and wants to backtrack.

This time a friend asked me how I was going to “celebrate” Valentine's day and it brought back to mind the wedding vows - which we did not take in those particular words  – especially the bit about “in sickness and in health”.

So that I can make clear what I am going on about here, I shall just briefly mention that I have been through 9 surgeries to date in my life time. One of those was when I was a kid, the rest in the course of the last 12 years. Life has gone on nonetheless and I can confidently say I have achieved whatever I had the potential for (even if it has not been anything spectacular) despite all the setbacks.

This Valentine's day saw me getting admitted to the hospital for my 8^th surgery – a spinal fusion for a problem which has been with me for the past few years. Although I knew that it would involve a considerable amount of endurance, I had not bargained for what followed – I knew these possibilities existed, but they always happen to other people, not to oneself or so one thinks. More about that follows. So it came to pass that I and my other half spent the day after Valentine's day holding hands in the ICU.


.....contd here