April 13, 2000 Dear Friends:  Jeanie Wylie came home last night. I broke my fast on Lebanese take-out (I'm up at 3:30 am with guts roiling). The host of tiny white lights that adorn the 60-foot tree before our house burn now in celebration as they have in vigil the last two weeks. Tomorrow the circuits will get their rest.  Yesterday when I went into the hospital, Jeanie was up and about, packing unprompted for home (!), everything laid out in tidy piles on the bed in preparation. After a proper greeting, she turned toward the Betty LaDuke poster we'd hung on her wall and said, "Isn't that painting beautiful? There's so much going on." Sentences effortless, lucid, and complete. For forty-five minutes downstairs in rehab, she was completely focused and co-ordinated, climbing stairs, getting in and out of mocked-up car doors, and otherwise demonstrating her readiness. Doctors paraded through with smiles agog and tears welling in their eyes. It seemed we were all suddenly looking back on the corner we'd been praying she'd t urn.  She still gets stuck mid-sentence, searches for words, or forgets she's already listened to the phone messages, but Jeanie's clearly busy rerouting circuits to her brain's place of naming.  Day before yesterday Lucy and I sat in the morris-chair discussing how we'd get her some weekly counsel time; today the girls dance giddy and Lydia runs house to house on the block with good news she never really doubted. Two days ago I was fighting not to be haunted by a string of second-guessed decisions; in the light of today I think we made some good calls and know once again that second-guessed self-accusations are pointless if not faithless. Two days back I was turning my head away in tears as we discussed the merits of hospice with physicians and social workers; this morning I can fully imagine Jeanie editing yet another issue of the magazine. Then, I figured if she joined the Peace Community's Good Friday Way of the Cross streetwalk, it would be in silence by wheelchair, today I see her on foot, reading prayers aloud at each stop and later at her favorite service of all: the Easter Vigil.  So what turned this amazing tide? Lord knows. It coincides with several things. I began surreptitious resumption of the NDV (chicken virus) treatment. She and I would repair to the bathroom and shoot up. (Actually, I did alert one of the doctors to my intention). Based on high blood levels, they also began reducing the dosage of Jeanie's new seizure medication. There is, needless to say, the coincident mystery of "time" which one of the doctors persisted in urging us to wait up on. And, of course, that other mystery: prayers more numerous, more numinous, than lights upon the lenten tree.  Thank you, dear friends, for vigiling with us yet again. Forgive us the changes we must put you through. You, however, hold us steady and lighten our hearts .  Til we walk those streets together, Bill