Heart Aches, Heart Breaks

Well, the docs here say I seem to be fine and that the mild heart attack was an abberation, not something I should be too concerned with. The cracked ribs that came with the damned fall when I had the attack, however, hurt like Roberto Duran caught me cleanly just under my left breast.
The heartache in the title, however, refers to missing my Madeleina. This house seems pretty empty without her, and also without the wild impishness of little Sierra trying to vie for control of my keyboard. And next year, when little Alexa gets to be old enough to fall in love with, I'll be missing all three.
But Chepa's got to be Chepa and she appears determined to like that new boyfriend/father of Sierra and Alexa and that has to be okay with me. I'm still gonna love those girls when they're around, because they're around an awful lot, and I'm still going to miss my Madeleina when Chepa takes her to visit that boy and his parents. And she should, just to be with her sisters, but it's still a heartache for me to get up mornings like this thinking I'm going to make breakfast for everybody and then have that one second crushing feeling when I remember there is nobody. Italo and Marco leave for work at 3 and 4 AM respectively; Italo and Sarah are slightly broken-up, so she's not living here, and then Chepa, Madeleina and the babies are gone.
So what I'm gonna do is work hard, and as soon as these ribs let me--and there is nothing to do but take a couple of aspirin every few hours to dull the pain--I'm going to go out and take it out on the lawn. I'm going to cut that grass this morning till it shines.
And the next time I get on this to write something I'm going to do it from joy, not self-pity, okay? I mean, I'm entitled now and then, but there is still lots and lots of wonderment just in being alive. Just in knowing that some of the people on my last trip--which finished for some yesterday and will finish for the rest this afternoon--got the medicine and breakthroughs they needed. Some fell in love again; some got healed from deep pain; a few just has a blast; a couple probably think I just stole their money and gave them a lousy trip. Even the last group will find out that the medicines will keep working and in six months will probably be in touch to say they've changed.
One of the odd things that happened on this trip related to last year's June trip. One of the people on that trip who really had it in for me--just the wrong trip for that person--has recently been in touch with a couple of my team members to ask if she and her husband can redo the trip--just without Peter Gorman.
I hope she does. It did her a world of good, and it might do her even more good if I am not in her way the way she perceived it.
So hooray and thank you medicines for taking such good care with those who entrusted themselves to me. And thank you, team, for being the best goddamned team to ever grace the ballfield of my life.
And thank you sun, for rising again this morning.
Now, let's go out and play two today, as the great Ernie Banks used to say.