As many of you know, my husband had open-heart surgery today, and let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve paced around a room for 7 hours with the knowledge that your beloved has had his heart and breathing stopped and been placed on a heart-lung machine while a surgeon, whom you devoutly hope is a good one who didn’t overindulge in Scotch over the weekend, plays dicey games with the organ that keeps your husband living. I think he did a good job; my husband is, according to the CVICU, now off the respirator and sleeping with the help of some good drugs. Let’s hear it for good drugs!

The bad news is that he’s gone for the week, and in the 9 years we’ve been married, we’ve never been separated for more than overnight. I’ll see him every day, of course, but I miss him like crazy; he wasn’t awake when they let me briefly inside the CVICU after his surgery, and I haven’t heard his voice since 7:30 this morning when, under the influence of the first in a series of many good drugs, I listened to him hold forth to the anesthesiologist about the demise of President William McKinley, who was assassinated — more specifically, he died of gangrene in his gunshot wounds after an assassination attempt. (Leave it to my Ben to give a historical and medical discourse when schnockered. The anesthesiologist assured me he’d never remember a word of what he said.)

I can’t wait to see him tomorrow, when he’s conscious and hopefully lacking many of the scary tubes running in and out of him. I can’t wait to tell him how Matt’s male Monsters vs. Aliens Happy Meal toy tried to hit on Julia’s female one over dinner at McDonald’s. That’s the sort of detail that makes a dad like Ben smile. And tonight I’m very thankful that my kids have a dad.