Coming Home

It’s June.  It’s a month, it’s an anniversary.

It’s not a birthday, though Lily and Lyle have June birthdays.  It’s not a wedding anniversary, though June is a pretty big “get married” month.  Marty and I got married in January.

It’s a homecoming, more accurately it’s a coming home anniversary and it’s one of those milestone anniversaries.  Eleven years ago this month Marty came home after an April aneurysm, eleven years since she had a better chance of dying than living. 

Ten years ago in June Marty and I came home after her second stroke, the one that took her left side, her independence and part of her fire.

Both times the coming home was relatively short lived.  After the aneurysm Marty had to have one more surgery to replace the cover on her lid, she had a piece of her skull missing.  They had to go back and replace it with prosthesis.   It’s great plastic work, you can’t tell it from the original.

The second time, we weren’t home more than a week before we had to go back to the hospital via the emergency room.  It was the first er/hospital trip of many. 

That was ten years ago, ten years ago when a couple of friends took me to play golf and we got through five holes before I got a call that I needed to come home.  I went home, I talked to the home health nurse, we took Marty to the hospital, again, and checked her in because of pneumonia.  I felt completely and totally overwhelmed.

I clearly remember sitting on the tub in our bathroom (my hideout) trying to catch my breath, trying to calm my racing heart, trying to avoid a full blown anxiety attack.  It felt like, after all we had been through, it was one disaster after another all leading, all culminating in Marty dying on my watch, at our home, where I was supposed to be good enough, smart enough, strong enough to will her alive and healthy.

That was ten years ago and our lives have continued to evolve, largely for the better.  Marty is still broken, Marty is still very susceptible to infection and illness, Marty still requires more care than I ever thought.   Marty is still with me, with all of us, and it’s very much a miracle of medicine, good care, and good old fashioned Watkins women’s perseverance.

We have endured a lot of anxiety and we have lived through tumultuous change.  We have been afraid, we have mourned, we have cried, we have been angry, we have felt guilt, been lonely, isolated, ignorant, sometimes careless and without faith. 

We have felt and experienced pretty much the same emotions as normal people, the same as most of you, yet different, maybe enhanced, maybe not.

What I know is we are living, 11 years after brushing against our own mortality.  We are smarter and more experienced and better able to handle whatever the future may send us. 

I really want everyone to understand that the road the fates have taken us has been, at too many times, awful.  The last 10 or 11 years have been harder than I ever imagined and I was not, not, not remotely prepared or emotionally capable of handling this past decade. 

Guess what, I, we, Marty and me, handled it and we did it, not because we’re special, we aren’t.  There is a simple key, it’s really simple, you do what you have to do, you face what you have to face and you walk your path one tremulous step at a time and you don’t look too far down the trail or it will be way too frightening.

The result of the last decade, I have learned more than I ever wanted to know.  I found my passion, something we all need to find, it turns out I was living with her all the time.  I learned I could learn and so could Marty, I learned we could endure hardship, I learned we are up to the task we have been given, and most importantly I learned you can adapt to anything, to any disaster in your personal journey. 

And if I know anything, I know you can do it too.

The Cards

It’s a little dangerous when I start organizing, I never seem to finish.  I didn’t get very far because I’m easily distracted from tasks that kinda suck.  Mostly I was side tracked by a treasure trove of old cards, cards from about ten years ago, cards to Marty in the aftermath of her ruptured aneurysm.  

When Marty was in ICU at Zale Lipshy Hospital in Dallas people would send cards to our son’s address in Dallas or our home in Waco and friend Sue would truck them up to Dallas when she visited.  The cards were from all over, friends from church, Marty’s high school and college friends, strangers from other churches, little kids from Sunday school, from our own kids and our family.  I saved all of those cards, bundled them up together and stuck them in a filing cabinet.

I would sit by Marty’s hospital bed where she lay in a coma with tubes coming from all parts of her body, draining fluids, breathing for her and feeding her.  I would sit there and read her the cards and read her the notes inside the cards, often several times.  It was a way to stabilize the chaos in my head, a way to drown out the constant hum of the respiratory equipment and the tones of the machines measuring Marty’s life forces and maybe a way to reach into Marty’s consciousness.

Reading those cards kept me connected and reminded me of the love and caring of others. I read the cards to Marty hoping somewhere somehow she heard their message….we love you, we are praying for you, wake up, get up, recover.

After Marty regained consciousness I once again read her all of the cards she had received.  I sat by her bed, amazed she was finally awake.  I read each card aloud, to my miracle of a wife who was still missing the left front part of her skull, had matted dirty hair from lying on her back for six weeks and still had way too many tubes coming from all parts of her body.  

I read the cards to her, each word, several times, sometimes multiple times during the day.  I wanted her to feel what I had felt when I first read her the cards.  I wanted her to feel the connection to people outside of our new world that was centered in a medical center; I wanted her to hear the encouragement and pleas of her friends, old and new, to move, to recover, to get well.  I wanted her to know how many people loved her and the cards helped with a very simple message, you have been laid low but you have not been forgotten. 

I read her the encouraging words from Jane Ann, the words of love from my brother John, the words of comfort from Sherry, the words of prayer from complete strangers from a friend’s church, I read her the simple words from children.  

We read them over and over again as Marty came back to life.  We read them as she went to a regular room, we read them as she sat up in a wheelchair for the first time in weeks, we read them as Erin cut off her dirty, matted hair.  I took the cards to comprehensive rehab and read them to Marty as she started getting stronger and the miracle of her recovery continued.  I read the new ones Amelia and Joe and Ellen and Luan, I read the old ones again and every time she would listen and ask, “Now who sent that?”  It was proof she was recovering.

I’m a big connectional guy.  I hate to feel isolated and away, I need, and I mean need, to feel close to the world, to my people.  The cards did that for me and they weren’t even meant for me, they were for Marty, the woman fighting for her life.  

For Marty, they meant something even more, they reminded her of who she was, in a strange kind of way they brought her back to her world, to her friends and to her family.  From very simple words, from very simple cards, from very thoughtful remarks she was reconnected to life.  

Of course I read through the cards again instead of focusing on the reorganizing task ahead.  It’s strange that these simple pieces of cardboard still carry power today.  I will let Marty hold them and read them again and then file them away one more time.  

The cards and the words and the people who sent them are our treasure.

Thanks for the Hook-Up

My head has not been there in a while.  The past months, really the past couple of years have been too good to dwell on what was, what happened and what might have happened.  Encounters make me think back.

I went to a wedding and saw the minister that sat with us the morning April 4, 2005.  That was the morning of Marty’s surgery to stop the bleeding from her ruptured cerebral aneurysm.  That was the morning I began to understand mortality.

That Sunday the minister in question sat with us, first in a small room, then a larger room.  She sat with me, with Erin, with Matt, with Sarah, with Wesley as we paced, as we waited anxiously and hopeful for word on Marty after her hours’ long surgery.  It was a long, painful, exceedingly frightening wait.  It was one of those did she live kind of waits.

At the wedding I talked briefly to the right reverend Fran and thanked her for being with us that day.  I didn’t do a very good job of saying thank you and telling her how much her presence meant to me and to my family.  I don’t think I explained how much comfort it brought to be connected with our faith at a time when every part of my life, every fiber of my being was shaken and my faith was being pulled from me little by little with every tick of the clock.  

It’s taken me years to understand that Fran’s loving and calm presence that day did more than just offer spiritual solace.  Her presence that morning connected me to my church and to our larger church. Actually, it was more than that, the connection Fran brought helped me tap into a faith that all too often wavers and all too often is led by my doubts.  

Sitting in those rooms, waiting for news, good or bad, I needed something big to hold, Fran brought that.  That connection to the church universal has kept me coming back to my faith in spite of my doubts and fears and anger.  It is a connection to something larger and more important than me or a single congregation.

Fran came to us that day through Matt and Sarah’s church, but it is my church too because as Presbyterians we are connected.  My church is connected to their church which is connected to my parent’s church which is connected to my sister’s church all of which is connected to the faith of the thousands of doubters in the past and the future.  

We are a connectional church and that is what my faith needed that day, I needed to feel joined to my church 100 miles away, I needed the faith of my parents and sister who happened to be in Ireland at the time, I needed the faith of all of those who had gone before Marty and I, and I needed the faith of all of those who would come after us.  

I am sure Fran has sat with countless people, some in better situations, some in worse.  I did not know her, Marty didn’t know her, but she made me comfortable, she gave me comfort.  On that day, at that time Fran was a part of my larger family.  On that day at that time Fran brought a modicum of peace to me and mine.  On that day at that time Fran represented something, for me, that was much larger than her, than me, than Marty, she represented the love and the history our faith.

Our world has changed in the 9 ½ years since that April in 2005.  I have changed, my base of knowledge and understanding about our life has been expanded and I think, I think, I better understand myself and my place in our journey.

I now understand how much I need to feel connected to the greater world.  I understand today how important it was to me then, on that day.  On that day I don’t think I recognized what was going on, that Fran’s presence, for me, brought the power of presence of our faith and congregations.

Thank you Fran, it really meant a lot then, it means even more today.

Nine Years Ago

I almost missed it.  Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe that’s a sign of acceptance.  It’s what happens when you move on; it’s what happens when you take down a calendar (http://martytalks.blogspot.com/2010/07/calendar.html).

It’s been nine years, it was nine years two days ago, it was nine years ago since she sat holding her head, since she sat holding her head saying the exact words, “This is the worst headache I’ve ever had.”

It’s been nine years since that way too young red headed emergency room doctor pulled the ER curtain back and apologized as he said Marty was bleeding in her brain and I sat there not understanding and just thinking, “I don’t care, just fix her.”

It’s been nine years since I didn’t understand the implications, since I didn’t know the road to recovery, since I didn’t foresee the pain and loss Marty would have to endure. 

It’s been nine years since modern medicine and an amazing surgical team saved Marty’s life and gave us these nine more years.

Nine years ago I sat in the waiting room in Parkland Hospital with my children and their significant others and I couldn’t understand the real life implications of the ruptured aneurysm.  I know not knowing the future helped all of us cope that night.  

Nine years ago I cried, I sobbed, as they told me Marty had survived surgery but they had to leave part of her skull out.  That was the moment I cried for joy and fear because hearing those words finally helped me understand how close death had been, how close death still was.

In those nine years we have grown, we have grown into our new normal, maybe we have even grown into acceptance of our current life.  Some days I see it, some days it seems normal, it seems okay, other days, not so much.

In those nine years we have seen numerous doctors, Marty has endured several surgeries and too many invasive infringing medical procedures to count.  In those nine years she has been sick and we (I) have matured in how we handle the trips to the hospitals, again, too many to list.

In those nine years we have more than survived.

In those nine years we have met countless loving people who have reached out to Marty and to me.  We have grown closer to our entire family as they banded together to support Marty and me.  We have seen our children take loving care giving roles for their mother, we have see a family grow stronger in adversity.

In those nine years we have seen a daughter marry and our children procreate and give us grandchildren.  We have buried a mother; we have seen friends and our own family struggle with sorrow, death, illness and heart break.  We have seen life.

We have found remarkable women who have taken Marty into their heart and cared for her everyday as if she was their own.  The disease is catastrophic but we are all better for knowing Marty’s caregivers and the love they show to us and to their own families.

Nine years ago yesterday I woke from a few hours sleep to go find Marty in intensive care recovery at Parkland Hospital in Dallas.  She was lying on her back, half of her head shaved with a huge scar and indention on the front left side of her head.  The right side still had hair, matted with her blood from the surgery.  

She was full of tubes and lines and was surrounded by all manner of electronics beeping and flashing showing she was still with us.

Nine years ago I had no idea what our life would be like for those next few days, weeks and the years.  I knew Marty had survived, I knew we would fight for normalcy; I knew there was an awful lot I needed to know.

In nine years Marty and I have both changed, I hope we have grown, I hope we have found some measure of contentment with our lot in life today.  

Maybe almost forgetting is a good sign; maybe we are almost at normal.