Agonistic communion—

—in the agonized, dear flesh

You’re flat on your back, wrapped in the pain that clenches between your ribs, your skull a cap of sorrow-squeeze, your neck ablaze. The sky weeps into the sunflower stalks’ upright leaves.

In the background, a recorded concert hall swollen with song. Beauty persists.

Even your little finger hurts (how?), and also two weeks ago friends dropped off soup and gluten-free bread at the door in a paper bag with a love note written on its side. You ate this soup, toasted this bread with butter, felt it warm you as a sacrament.

Communion: to welcome even the parts of you that hurt. To say, hello, illness, you episodic interloper, hello ache, here’s a blanket and a cushion. I will not bar the door against you. I wish you’d please go away soon, but while you’re here, you may as well have some tea. There’s honey from my sister-in-law’s good bees.

Communion: to smile at the other patient in the hospital waiting room, the one who is regaling the crowd with stories of his fisherman past while he waits between tests for his tricky heart. To joke with the uncle and auntie squabbling over a Tim Horton’s run. To thank the student who failed his first (and second) attempt at your IV.

Communion: friends coming for pizza who make nothing of your need to lie down on the couch while you host them, who just offer you a blanket and talk about books and ice cream and then leave before it gets too late.

Communion: people singing in the front room, your daughter blundering beautifully along on bass guitar. You may need to go lie down again, but you can hear them down the stairs, their conversation its own kind of song.

Communion: the text thread of mourners trying to gain entrance to the memorial service livestream. Checking in, offering advice, troubleshooting across the miles. Friends and strangers, somehow gathered even here (where?) in grief.

Agony: the grief. The hospital. The ache. The fear and the fatigue.

Agon: the struggle, which doesn’t seem to end.

Agonistic communion: the trying. The search for the right link. The courage to make eye contact through tears. The dancing slowly while everything still hurts. The feeling of a child’s head against your shoulder, your breathing slow and synced.