Things went sideways last week. It wasn’t the winter break we’d planned for or expected. Definitely not the rejuvenating one I thought I needed. After posting my blog Tuesday night, we went to sleep with the normal flu symptoms, urgent care having helped to level my husband out initially. Tony woke up feeling a bit better, even took a shower by himself, but severe abdominal pain returned soon after. I took him to the ER Wednesday mid-morning—New Year’s Eve—when I saw his vomit looked like coffee grounds and there was blood in his stools.

My brother David, a gastroenterologist, had become my private consultant. “Take him to the hospital,” he’d said when I described the symptoms. “Now.”

I did. And Tony lived because of it.

The Touch of Helplessness

I’ve never touched my husband so much without reciprocation. Seeing him in pain, I was helpless save to try and make him more comfortable. I’d adjust his blankets every time he rolled over, hold the bag and pat his back when he started retching, massage his feet to soothe him. I called his mom and his friends with updates, kept up his Snap streaks, and made sure Calista had fun sleepover adventures to carry her through the rest of break.

Tony was admitted and we spent the night, with meds controlling the dehydration and nausea so the tear in his esophagus could heal. I crocheted a foot more of Tony’s Bears scarf and read a book Mama Marci sent me. We shared his tiny hospital bed. He woke me for a kiss when the ball dropped.

He was fine in the morning and just wanted to sleep and be left alone, so I left the hospital briefly to let our dogs out, feed them breakfast, and snatch five minutes at the first sunrise of 2026. There were some thirty or so other people who showed up for it, busy and loud, so I didn’t mind not being able to stay. It wasn’t the way I’d hoped to start the new year.

The Return

We were discharged that afternoon and Tony seemed to be on the mend, but at 2 AM Friday morning, Tony was again facing severe pain. His vomit and stools were clear of blood, but the centralized pain in his belly intensified. David was on call, guiding me through each decision. Hearing Tony’s groans in the background, he said, “Yes, go back to the ER.”

I gave in and took Tony back to the hospital at around 5:30 AM.

He was in no shape to leave for the sunrise.

Sunrise in the Hallways

I walked the floor of the ER once instead, and that’s when I saw them—half a dozen sunrise landscapes decorating the hallways. Beach sunrises, mountain sunrises, desert dawns in frames. I stood before each one, these windows to elsewhere when I couldn’t get to my own pier.

God had provided witness even there.

In that sterile hallway at dawn, while Tony writhed in pain behind curtains, I found my sunrise. Not over the York River with my journal and beach chair, but in mass-produced prints meant to calm anxious families. The light still rose. The colors still changed. Even in the ER, even on the worst day, the sun was rising somewhere, and someone had thought to bring it inside for people like me who couldn’t leave.

I crocheted another foot of his scarf that day. I’d brought Breath of the Wild, the Zelda game he started me playing, but I couldn’t care less about the game while we were in the hospital. It seemed meaningless.

The Mountains We’ve Climbed Before

They readmitted Tony, and we spent the night again. As I kept vigil, I couldn’t help but remember another hospital, another man I loved fighting for his life. In 2017, it was my brother P.J. with a bleeding ulcer that nearly killed him. I watched my mother then—never leaving his side, catching the IV that wasn’t working, finding the vial of blood in his covers, advocating fiercely when alarms went unanswered.

Eight years later, I had become her.

The same coffee ground vomit. The same cycles of hope and crisis. The same hallway pacing. But this time, I was the one adjusting blankets, the one watching for signs, the one who wouldn’t leave.

And just like 2017, David was there—not in person this time, but on call all week long. My brother, the one who’d saved P.J.’s life by insisting on surgery when others hesitated, became our lifeline. Tony kept saying, “Tell David I’m grateful for him.” For the first time, I think he felt it—David wasn’t just my brother, he was Tony’s family too.

The Stillness

I crocheted until I ran out of yarn, then returned to the book, but I was admittedly restless, so unaccustomed to being still for so many days without so much as a trip to the gym. Tony’s mom came and went, but mostly it was just me and the beeping machines and the waiting for the next person to enter for labs or food or updates.

By the time Tony was discharged late Saturday afternoon, I felt behind on life. At home, there was so much to do—projects started left unfinished due to illness, a to-do list I’d never gotten around to, and all the typical chores ignored in our absence.

I remembered back to my goal for break that I’d shared with my sixth graders before we closed schools for the holiday: to make the most of every moment of the break.

Had I?

I had just a day left of break, then Monday it would be back to the daily grind.

The Last Day

I tried to savor the last day of break, to make the most of it. We started with the sunrise.

We went to church. We picked up the Walmart order. We watched the finale of Stranger Things, and I assembled one of my Christmas presents, a hibiscus Lego set. We layered up and took the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood. I finished the sewing project I’d started before taking Tony to the hospital last week. I put away Christmas gifts and set our house in order. I made dinner, prepared Tony’s lunch, and laid out my clothes for work the next day.

Monday morning, we all returned to the daily grind. I kissed Tony goodbye in the kitchen where he was making coffee before heading to work. I brought Jack breakfast and took out his trash. I went to the sunrise and journaled through dawn. I watched the world wake up and reflected on break.

I’d wanted to make the most of every moment, but I couldn’t have known what was coming. Did I? Make the most of it?

The Moments We Never Wanted

Sitting at my regular sunrise spot Monday morning, journal open, I realized something: I had made the most of every moment. Just not the way I’d planned.

Making the most of New Year’s Eve meant sharing a tiny hospital bed and getting a midnight kiss between doses of morphine.

Making the most of New Year’s Day meant snatching five minutes of sunrise with thirty strangers before returning to my husband’s side.

Making the most of January 2nd meant finding God’s witness in ER hallway art, discovering that sunrise comes to those who cannot leave.

Making the most of it meant:

• Keeping up someone else’s Snap streaks when they couldn’t hold their phone
• Crocheting three feet of scarf because my hands needed something to do while keeping vigil
• Massaging feet because he said it brought him real comfort
• Finding extraordinary grace in ordinary hallways
• Having David on speed dial, family showing up for family, blood or not

The Song Remains

The sunrise paintings in the ER hallway weren’t just God providing witness in the present—they were reminders that He’d moved mountains before. That song from 2017 still echoes: “I’ve seen You move. You move the mountains. And I believe I’ll see you do it again.”

He did it again.

The Daily Grind as Grace

Monday morning, kissing Tony goodbye as he made coffee—that was making the most of it. The beautiful, boring normalcy of a husband well enough to go to work. The daily grind I’d dreaded returning to? It was the answer to every prayer I’d prayed in that hospital room.

I told my students to make the most of every moment of break. I thought that meant adventures and completed projects and Savannah sunrises. Instead, it meant being fully present in the moments we never choose—the hospital vigils, the helpless watching, the hallway sunrises when real ones are impossible.

Sometimes making the most of a moment means recognizing that the moment itself—even if it’s spent on an ER floor looking at someone else’s sunrise photos—is the gift. Sometimes the most exotic destination is just the ordinary Monday morning you get to have because everyone’s home and healing.

God provides witness everywhere—in journals that return, in hallway art, in brothers who answer every text with medical wisdom, in the daily grind that means everyone’s okay.

That’s making the most of it.