Ash Wednesday 

I started Lent this year with a more introspective mindset than usual, what with my aunt on hospice and my elderly parents being themselves. (Deaf, stubborn, won't wear their hearing aids, a little confused.)  On Wednesday I had to go into the city in the hope of getting my first COVID vaccine at the hospital - most of my co-workers have completed it already but I was delayed due to contracting COVID in early January, though I feel fine now. 

It was indeed a fine and appropriate Ash Wednesday. The humbling process started early, as my staff ID was rejected when I tried to pull into the hospital parking lot (I had not been there in months, so it had been deactivated). The ID problem duly fixed, I wandered into the building and found the walk-in line for the vaccination. I was issued a ticket and a sticker marked 2/17 (for that day's batch of vaccine), answered questions regarding symptoms (none, thank you) and while in line passed a table stacked with envelopes of ashes for application. I helped myself to one, curious to see how the do-it-yourself penance kit would work. Stood in line for a while and eventually made it to the front, handed in my ticket and sat down with a friendly nurse to answer more questions and read through the information provided (we are using the Pfizer vaccine). The injection was painless; I sat and read my Kindle for the required 15 minute observation period and then left. My next injection is in three weeks and I have an appointment. It's a relief to finally get this done. 

Later that day at home I sat in my room and opened the envelope. It contained a cotton swab with a dab of ashes on it and a slip of paper with a two-sentence reading. I focused on "Dust you are, and to dust you shall return" - thinking of my aunt - and applied the ashes. 

Hopefully this year I will be more focused on Lent than I have been the last few years. As for Easter... we don't know whether my aunt will still be with us then or not. The good news is that the outreach of love and support from her friends has been nothing short of uplifting; come what may, I know I will hold these memories on Easter Sunday.

Labels: Holidays, Medicine, The Doctor's Life