Your Five Favorite Things In Recovery

When you look back upon your recovery, what will be the five things you valued most? The people, the objects, the remedies, the moments that you'll take with you, that will stand as some sort of milestone in the long days you journeyed through?

I have a few already.

1. Someone sent me an Ugg blanket, and for me it was an other-worldly experience. I took it out of the box like I was unwrapping a box with a puppy. I didn't know anything existed in the natural world that could be this soft. It’s big. It’s pretty. It’s a heavenly cocoon. It helped me get well—a physical and psychological gift of love.

2. Good Water. This might sound like a weird item, but having good, clean water made me feel good. We’d bought a good freestanding water filter last year and I didn’t appreciate it near enough until my surgery. There’s nothing in the water but H2O and a few important minerals, and drinking it just feels good. I leave a cold pitcher of it in the refrigerator with lemon slices and there were days I’d climb out of my desert and fill my parched body with something I trusted and that nourished me.

3. The Goodness of Others. People have been so lovely—not just with flowers, but with genuine concern and love. The texts, the calls, the prayers. What I know now is that I vow to be better at this myself because I see how much the smallest tokens of friendship mean to people who truly need you. If I take away anything from this journey, that will certainly be the most important lesson of all.

4. Frozen Meals. I had a month before surgery, so every time I made a meal, I’d freeze half of it. Now, I’ve never been a Tupperware kind of mom, or particularly organized, but I’m grateful I got it together enough to do this. It’s really nice to pull out a home-cooked entre from the freezer and not have to worry about dinner. Ordering out gets old. A little love in the freezer is a good thing. A really good thing.

5. And speaking of food, have you ever had Pho? My daughters were always raving about it and one of them alerted me to my nearest Pho place by Googling it. I’ll tell you, a carton of this magic soup is like sending someone’s Korean grandmother to your house to make giant heaps of chicken soup. It’s made of bone broth, which is so good for you, and rice noodles and herbs and all sorts of other things. I had it delivered and it felt like I was ingesting healing energy. I actually had tears in my eyes when I ate it because it felt like the most nourishing thing I could do for myself that day—the one good thing that I could do that day for myself when showering was out and even brushing my teeth was a chore. I’m a pho fan now, and I’ve put it on my list of good gifts for sick friends and family members.

What are your favorite things?