Hiatal: A time to let go

The families bubbled in with hugs and handshakes for folks farther from home, smiles and nods for ones nearer. Aromas of turkey, potatoes, gravy, corn, beets, and stuffing filled Aunt Rose’s house where we converged, in part for Christmas and in part for Grandma’s 89th.

Aunt Rose sang out, “Come get it!” and, considering the small kitchen table rightsized for most days, she added, “Sit wherever suits you!” I was suited to the sofa beside the lamp, a prime reading spot. (This break’s banned book and literary classic??The Grapes of Wrath.)

With cousins and kids meandering to the nearby seats suiting them, I peeled a piece of turkey and dabbed it in gravy (because if meats were landscapes, turkey would be the desert). I chewed the delicious bite, thorough and appreciative, then swallowed. And I felt it.

Oh no. Please, not now.

And I swallowed again. And then again. And again. But each attempt lodged the bite firmer in a space above where it belonged.

Panicked, yet trying to be discreet, I made for water and set my full dinner plate in the first safe place I passed. (Which was among the desserts because, you know, there’s nothing more discreet than a full dinner plate abandoned among the desserts…)

At the sink I drew a few gulps of water into a glass then swallowed one with a prayer that it clears the surprise hiatal hernia and frees me to eat.?

Nope. Instead it added to the blockage that — together with lubricative things the body generates in response to such an event — now edged against my windpipe and gag reflexes.

Oh no. PLEASE NOT HERE!?

My nearest escape was into the garage where, with what grace I could gather, I gladly fled sock-footed, across melting snow, into a space apart.

My childhood is rife with mealtime memories of Dad leaving the table with hiatal hernias, the gap in his diaphragm (the?hiatus) having let through his upper stomach and strangling his ability to swallow. When it happens, the body generates unreal amounts phlegm and saliva to clear the blockage.?

More often, though, those fluids back-up until elevating to the windpipe, triggering gagging and a terrifying sense of drowning from within. At this point Dad would flee outdoors to spare his family from sometimes hours of retching sounds. (Neighbors? Let them wonder and close their windows.?Can’t be everything to everyone.) We know there's a minimally invasive surgery to fix this, but mine are a stubborn and frugal people.

There, in Aunt Rose’s garage, it wasn’t until letting go of my frustration, anxiety, and efforts that my hernia began to let go of me. Twenty-ish minutes later, with gratitude for the reminder that?sometimes simply letting go is the solution, I reentered through the sunporch, rescued my plate from among the now depleted desserts, and returned to the seat that suited me. Family kindly folded me into their smalltalk, my wondrous wife having no doubt already informed them.

Freud said the most important thing in life is work. (Actually he said it’s?love and work, but love?takes?work.) As important, I think, is letting go when moments allow or, in the case of a hiatal hernia, demand. Exercise without recovery builds weak muscles. Focus without curiosity creates lousy innovations. And fighting frustrations makes suffering of pain. (Injustice, millennia of humanity attests, is one frustration that people will not suffer. They will fight. And change will come.)

It’s a quirky coincidence of language that?hiatal?is the adjective form of?hiatus, a word more often used in the context of taking a break, of not piling-on but rather stepping away and letting go for a spell. It tickles me to know that the remedy for a?hiatal?hernia (surgery aside) is right there in its name. And, in that weird way, a?hiatal?hernia mirrors work itself: When things feel stuck, sometimes the best way to unstick them is a hiatus.

Hoping your holiday season was one of relaxation, letting go, and otherwise effective hiatus. May your 2023 be fruitful in work as well as rest!