Just a Finger

Sunlight drenches and soft music fills room, finally- quiet rejuvenation.
Weary eyes and blurry head strain to re plan to-do list, re-sort the day's priorities.
That dull throb and those heavy eyelids ache for rest, defying midday brilliance of spring sun.
Small boys don't understand sleeping in. Burning candles at both ends takes creative restoration these days.
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Husband has been on vacation this past week, and we have been knocking one project after another off the list. Late nights and early mornings and plan plan plan and then, a saw blade and a fingernail pull us to a halt.

We stay up late, he with pain piercing hand, me with worry and fret. We pass the hours of early morning, debating a midnight trip to the ER. Eventually the pain subsides, and husband reassures that the finger will be OK.

He laughs, "just a hangnail" as I dab blood away from and wrap gauze around 3/16 inch puncture wound in his fingernail (only a carpenter measures injuries in sixteenths.)

And as the moments pass through the night it strikes me anew- the ever present danger of his profession, the inherent perils of our lives on the farm. A split second changes lives. Such an encounter only serves as a reminder of how fortunate we are each day for the limbs we have, the hands and feet and ears and eyes and oh, what would we do without? Certainly life would be changed.

My offer of chore duty for his recuperation is met as if it were a challenge. "Oh, I it's just a finger," he assures me, pulling on those boots and winning that race to the barn.
And so he heals, still stubbornly hauling buckets of water to animals under this nurse's protest that he just rest and get better. Taking trenching shovel and post hole digger to soft ground, gingerly holding out that poor finger with the half-torn off nail, wrapped and taped. That warm day calls to him louder than that throbbing hand, and he will not be deterred.

Certainly a farmer he is becoming.