noah wyle wrote an episode so full of humanity it pulsed with life.
youβre in the car with your spouse and things havenβt been the best lately. tempers are short. thereβs distance between the two of you that is new and scary when thereβs time to give it thought. a maybe-vacation is brought up but thereβs too much to consider and thereβs too much going on. you know itβs a bit of a hail mary but youβre desperate to bridge the gap between you but everything starts coming out wrong and suddenly the two of you are yelling at each other. both of you are frustrated. neither of you are hearing the other. someone says something thoughtlessly cruel that you use as a stepping stone to then say something else full of vitriol and you know itβs all just in the heat of the moment but it hurts it hurts it hurtsβbut itβs not the words, not anymore; itβs the accident. and youβre in the hospital being confronted with the real possibility of everything changingβfar beyond a simple miscommunication, a few weeks of space. we are rarely ever gifted the knowledge of when things are about to end, when itβs your last time doing something. what do you do when your spouse may die and the last words you exchanged were ones of hate? when your last memory together is one that is cruel? how do you reckon with that being it? no do-over. no going back in time.
youβre married to a man who is kind and good and itβs been a few years but you kinda still canβt stop thinking about your ex-husband even though you swearβyouβll swear to just about anyoneβthat youβre over him. and youβre having a normal day until you get a call from the emergency room about said ex-husband who youβof courseβdonβt think about! at least not that often! and before you know what youβre doing youβre already at the hospital asking for him, your hands restless, the pit in your stomach growing by the second. thereβs a bitter taste in your mouth; you know youβre doing something edging into the area of not okay but you canβt stop. your ex-husbandβmichael, michaelβlooks different but the same but different but the same and you feel so twisted inside you donβt quite know what it is you feel for him. itβs been so long and things were so bad at the end but when you look into his eyes itβs like youβre back several years ago full of warmth and laughter andβyes, youβre remarried; canβt stop fiddling with your ring in fact andβmichael isβmichael isβsick. really sick. and seemingly alone considering he never changed his emergency contact. you try not to feel anything about that. but you canβt help yourself from asking the question thatβs been fighting its way out since you heard whatβs wrong and the answer does not bring you comfort. this thing inside michael that has sucked much of the light and life out of him is most likely the reason behind all his personality changes. is most likely the reason behind what caused the beginning of the end for the two of you. how do you carry the weight of knowing? how do you move forward now that you know michael didnβt one day just decide to start picking fights at bars and being aggressive with you and it actually was something completely out of his control? something that if caught earlier could have savedβ.
you hate this holiday. itβs not one youβve ever particularly been fond of but for the past few years the days leading up to july 4th are some of your most dreaded. youβre already on edge, have been for most of the week. youβre shorter, more easily irritated with others in a way you know youβll feel badly about after all this passes but itβs hard to do much of anything when theβwhen the firecrackers are going off like your own personal war zone. but still. you do your best. you try to keep to your routine despite your shakiness. so you start preparing your samovar and then you are no longer in your home but backβbackβbackβthere and itβs so so loud and there are screams and shouts and crying and the sounds are animalistic and you retch and realize those noises are your noises and you are in your kitchen and not at synagogue. and god. youβre at the hospital and the doctor is handsome and jewish and has sad eyes but is patient and kind and you find yourself talking about things you do not even allow yourself to often let fully become thoughts. time passes but you still are made to remember like nothing has changed at all. what do you do in light of that? when your faith in others, in yourself, in your faith itselfβin everythingβhas been rocked? when everyone expects you to get better in time but you arenβt even sure what better means anymore?
