Finding Kissing Spots

Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.  Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. ~ Psalm 85-10-11 (NIV)

Often, while walking behind my husband when he was seated on our couch, I’d stop and kiss his bald spot and say, “There’s a tiny kissing spot right there just for me.”

We both knew it hadn’t been tiny for quite a while. For some unknown reason it began expanding soon after we got married. I don’t have a scientific explanation, but I’m convinced it has something to do with climate change.

Anyway, when my husband was first diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in January, about the third thing I said was, “Hey! Do you think you’ll lose your hair?” I’m sensitive like that.

David responded matter-of-factly, “Probably.”

My face lit up. “You know what that means? I’ll have more kissing spots.”

David responded matter-of-factly, “Probably.”

I waited patiently. His hair didn’t fall out as fast as we assumed it would. Expecting it to happen after his second round of chemo, he had the nurse give him a buzz cut, but it remained fuzzy, then grew back. Then, two weeks after his third round of chemo —voila!—his head was as soft as pudding. (Well, not his whole head, just his scalp. Actually, I’ve never felt pudding, but you know what I mean.) Now I had a multitude of spots to choose from and I have kissed them all!

I started to think about that term “kissing spot.” It was my positive way of looking at a negative situation. It reminded me of the joke, “While the optimist argued with the pessimist, the opportunist drank the water.” I wondered what other “kissing spots” I could find in the midst of this experience. I found a great example in my husband.

Every time . . .

• a doctor or nurse practitioner reported test results—whether good or bad—he thanked them.
• a person spent time with him, they left smiling.
• a member of the housekeeping staff swept under his bad and emptied his trash, he told them how much he appreciated it.
• a staff member changed her hair or wore something colorful, he complimented them.
• a cafeteria worker brought him a meal, no matter how tasteless it looked to me, he acted excited and said, “Oh, yum!”
• a group of med students rounded with the doctors, they left chuckling at one of his witty comments.
• a nurse hooked him up to his rolling IV dance partner for a bag of platelets, packed red cells, or antibiotics, he thanked them.
  

  David’s on and off dancing partner for the past 4 months.

He’d found their kissing spots. Now I needed to do the same.

In addition to his hospital room, I spent much of my time at the hotel, in shuttle buses, and trying to navigate my way from Dana-Farber to Brigham & Women’s. I saw a variety of people in various situations.

I thanked . . .

• the young man walking by the hotel who lifted my heavy suitcases out of my car and put them onto the luggage cart.
• the desk clerk who programmed my new cell phone’s GPS so I could find my way back to the hospital.
• the two women who gave me a ride when I missed the last morning hospital shuttle.
• the van and bus drivers who got me where I needed to go so I didn’t have to fight traffic.
• every hospital volunteer or staff member who recognized the dumb look on my face and pointed me in the right direction–more than once.
• the gifted hotel housekeeping staff whose kindness and consideration I will never  forget.
• my son Chris, his wife Diana, my daughter Erin, and her husband Chris for helping me prepare my house for David’s homecoming.

It was my privilege to . . .

• spend quality time with David’s sister, Darleen, who donated her matching stem cells to her big brother.
• pray with a woman who’d been told her husband was only a few days from Heaven.
• get a smile from a little, bald girl when I told her her light–up pink sneakers were so cool.
• listen as an immigrant father of two, a hotel guest, bragged about his children’s achievements since their move to the States.
• tell a woman how well David was doing the day before she herself was due to have the same type of stem cell transplant.
• spend hours with a patient who never whined or complained but exhibited a settled faith, patience, kindness, and peace through it all–my husband.

I learned something else. You won’t find kissing spots unless you’re looking for them. Don’t worry, they’re not hard to find. God puts them all around us.