When I came home from the hospital in January, Amigo asked me, “How was the hospital food?” I told him I’d been pleasantly surprised at the decent food choices and quality.

This time, I wasn’t expecting to be in the hospital. I certainly hadn’t expected to be laid out, on flat bed rest (no more than 30% raised at the head), and my right leg immobilized straight ahead. I needed comfort – and the hospital menu had some standard comfort foods.

Oatmeal. I had oatmeal for breakfast with a fresh fruit cup of diced cantaloupe and grapes. I managed to eat the fruit cup, but I needed to be fed (spoon fed!) the oatmeal and the cranberry juice given with a straw. All in all, it was still comfort food.

I was sitting up by lunch, so I had soup and salad. Chicken noodle soup, in fact, satisfied my comfort food craving perfectly. The salad was spinach with hard boiled eggs, bacon bits and a citrus dressing. This salad was tasty enough that I thought about making it myself when the spinach is ripe in June.

I’ll take that as a collection of very good signs. I was hungry, I fed myself. I enjoyed the meal. I thought ahead, ahead to going home, and ahead to the future.

Gardening, I’m told, means believing in a future, and I was looking to the future, That’s a comfort in more ways than one.