January 3....Forty Years and Counting

On January 3^rd 1976 the USA performed a nuclear test in Nevada.  It was called the Muenster test, which is funny because Marty and I lived in Muenster Texas.

On January 3^rd 1976 and Marty and I got married in Dalhart Texas.  It was a perfect blue sky day.  It was cold, clear and we had our first argument as a married couple.  I was driving too fast, she was right.

On January 3^rd 2006, on our 30^th anniversary, after surviving a ruptured brain aneurysm in 2005, after returning from a Christmas trip to Dalhart to see her mother, Marty had a devastating ischemic stroke.  It kind of takes the fun out of anniversary celebrations.

On that day, when she sat in her chair and slumped over, her face slack with no tone I wanted to drive fast, to the hospital.  It was dark and cold as I stood behind the ambulance looking in the back as they secured Marty’s gurney to the floor of the vehicle.  

The thought of it still makes me epically sad.

On January 3^rd 2016 (can you believe its 2016, as my son says, “Where’s my flying car?”) Marty and I celebrated two things, a long marriage and survival from a devastating illness.  I guess when you really get down to it if you do anything for 40 years it’s about survival.  I know for a fact if you make it ten years from a big stroke, it’s about survival. 

Marriage is all about love, caring for one another, self-sacrifice, partnership and acceptance of another person with other opinions in your life all day every day.  It’s about hard work, getting down in the dirt with someone, loving them past the anger and ignorance and accepting them in spite of what they may or may not do.  

Marriage is about relationship survival and it often isn’t easy but having a partner, that other beating heart is worth the fight.

Living through a cataclysmic illness is an endurance contest.  It is about love, it is about self-sacrifice and partnership and acceptance.  To live through strokes you get down in the dirt and find yourself doing things you never thought you would do.  You have to get through the anger, the denial, the resentment and you have to find a way to accept the care giver and the cared for in spite of what they may or may not do.  

Just like marriage, it is about survival and it isn’t easy at all but having your partner continue, having that other amazing beating heart next to you is worth the fight.

In 40 years of marriage I have learned a lot.  I know for certain if I had listened to Marty all of the time, if I had done what Marty had said all of the time, if I had done what Marty said when she said it all of the time….well who knows, that was never going to happen.  I have learned to ask about feelings, I have learned to identify my own feelings, and I have learned to not let “no” be my first reaction to everything.

In the ten years post stroke I have learned a lot and tried my best to make the changes necessary to survive and help Marty survive.  I’ve learned and try to live one day at a time and one issue at a time, I have learned to not over look or procrastinate about care giving stuff, I have learned to listen and to watch and to pay attention, I have learned to be nice to doctors and health care providers and I have learned to touch Marty’s cheek every day and say “I love you”.

Mostly, I have learned I have never loved anyone the way I love my bride, I have learned she is the most amazing person I have ever known, I have learned to understand and admire what real survival is and I have learned she is the person I was destined to be with for the duration.

The strange thing is, I knew most of that, it just really hit home the last ten years.  Walking the fine line between here and not here really focuses what you know.

Here’s to another ten…..

Finding Funny

When Marty and I first got together some 40 years ago we laughed, a lot.  We laughed with each other, at each other and we laughed at the world.  I don’t know if it was our new, young love, youth or our too often altered states but we did laugh a whole lot.

Somewhere along our journey we, meaning me, lost part of that laughter.  It didn’t mean we were unhappy it just meant we, meaning me, were too busy living and doing life to stop and laugh with each other.  We, meaning me, forgot to revel in the day, we, meaning me, forgot to look for the joy and humor life offers.  

I don’t think that’s particularly unusual.  You get focused on raising a family, developing and succeeding in a career while the verve of youth wanes and gets pushed aside by the realities of paying bills and doing yard work.

I mean really, life requires a serious and focused approach to everything.  Maybe……..actually that’s kinda bull.  A serious life requires laughter.

I think I got so consumed with living and with my own imagined self importance I lost myself.  My work, my career, my desire to raise perfect children in a perfect home with a perfect family made me take my own life and what I was doing too serious and I lost part of my laughter.  I was important and important people didn’t laugh very much because they had to think about some serious shit and you can’t laugh if you are thinking about serious shit.

Marty and the strokes brought me back to myself.  After living through impending death I found parts of me that I didn’t realize I had lost.  Marty’s survival helped me remember what was important.

Today, Marty and I laugh a lot.  We laugh in the face of irreparable brain injury, kiss my ass CVA.  

Our new life has many new issues, some more critical than any of the life issues of years past.  Being away from the work a day world makes life easier, having already raised perfect children helps, today we laugh not only at stupid stuff but the scary stuff.  

We laugh at the movies, we laugh at the TV, we laugh at our grandchildren, we laugh at our children parenting our grandchildren a lot and mostly we laugh at each other.  Marty is still the funniest person she knows and I have found the goofy part of my soul that I lost so many years ago and I love to make her laugh, even at my own expense, especially at my own expense.  

Marty loves to laugh and it’s seriously the best thing in the world when she gets really tickled and has a laugh that starts high and moves low and goes on so long we both end up coughing and laughing at the same time.  I have learned not to make her laugh when she has a full mouth, Gator-Aid burns when it comes out your nose.  

The strokes hurt, they hurt both of us deeply and we have lived through some very serious times in the last four years.  In a side miracle I have managed to find something in myself I didn’t realize I had lost, my sense of humor.  As strange as it may seem I somehow feel more whole, I somehow feel I am a better companion, I somehow feel I am a better human being than I was ten years ago.

Our journey, with Marty as my Sherpa, has taken me back to the very basic root beliefs that we all need to love more, forgive more, be more tolerant, laugh more and hug a lot. I have really tried to adopt the whole, “and the greatest of these is love” thing.  Our God seemed serious about that and it really feels a lot better than judging.

Hey, don’t get me wrong.  I can still be a supreme stuffed shirt and I don’t like to do things on the spur of the moment, it makes me tense.  I get anxious over some stupid things and some really important things and I can and do frown with the best of them.  I still like to occasionally tangle with a telephone solicitor or point out in as many derogatory words as I can to describe really crappy customer service.  

But, when I get off the phone or walk away from the offending clerk I generally look at Marty and laugh about it. 

The Looks of Love

Marty loves me.  I know this.  I know because she says she does, I know by the way she looks at me, I know by what she does.  Marty loves me, as she says, “Very, very much.”

It’s a really nice thing to know you are loved; it is very simply the best thing about this care giving gig.  Married people need to know they are loved by their partners and too often we neglect the very simple but seminal detail, you are loved.  Me, I haven’t always known it. Me, I know it for sure today, I feel it every day from the woman I married.

It is the simple stuff that convinces me.  It is the way she looks at me when I am sliding my arms beneath hers to lift her from her chair.  She looks up at me, she looks at my eyes, my face, the growing dearth of hair on the crown of my head, she looks at me with soft blue eyes and I know I am loved by this amazing woman.  

I know her love by the way she takes her right hand and squeezes mine when I reach across the car as we drive down the road (assuming I’m not competing with the ubiquitous Diet Coke), it is the way she offers her cheek for a kiss and says “One more time” and then repeats that two or three times.  It is the way she grabs my arm as she is laying in her bed and I am giving her one last good night kiss or how she reaches out to goose me if I turn around too soon.  

Signs of love come at you in a lot of different ways.

I know her love is there when she swallows all of her pills without complaint or when she drinks the G2 Gator Aid that she doesn’t particularly like or when we prick her finger for blood or when we place the nebulizer mask on her or when we put the nasal cannula under her nose for oxygen or when I move her too fast from chair to chair and she say, “Ouch.”

   

Her willingness to handle all of the daily indignities without complaint, without balking is a singular message of her love for me.  She hates so much of that stuff, she hates being handled, I know she hates it, but I know she loves me more than she hates the procedures because she accepts what we do, because she knows how much harder my job would be if she complained or balked at the stuff we have to do.  She knows complaining would make the necessary parts of getting and giving care nightmarish.  She chooses to show her love.  It’s a big thing; it’s a big I Love You smack on the lips.

I am one of the fortunate ones that have always known love.  I knew my mother and father loved me, they showed me in so many different ways.  Too many don’t get that, I got that from my family from the time I was born.  And, somehow, some way, when Marty and I met, I knew she too would love me.  

Seeing love is really not that hard, you simply have to open your eyes and look for it.  It’s around you in the way a grandmother looks at a new granddaughter or a great-grandmother looks at her son’s brand new granddaughter.  I know what loving looks like.

I don’t ever wonder anymore if Marty loves me.  I have no doubts about how Marty feels about me, I know she loves me and that is a grand thing. 

And you know what else?  She is absolutely convinced that I love her too.  She’s right about that.

"You Got Me?"

I’m on her right, my right arm under her right arm, my left holding the back of her pants; she looks at me and says, “You got me?”  I nod.  She turns her head to her left, looks at Erica, her caregiver who has one arm under Marty’s and one arm gripping the back of her pants.  She looks Erica in the eye and asks, “You got me?”  

We then go 1, 2, 3 then lift to stand Marty up at the sink.  We got her.

It’s not a plea, it’s not a command, it’s a simple question that is not really that simple that carries across our lives, and “You got me?”  

You bet I got her.  I would never, ever let her fall.

Marty asks that question a lot; she has asked it, one way or another, for a long time.  In the past the question took on a larger meaning, today, its Marty’s way of doing a couple of things. 

When she asks the question, she expects focus, strength, and skill; it’s not a rhetorical question.  She wants the reassurance that you have the situation under control and that you are capable of lifting or twisting or pulling or pushing, whatever you’re doing.  It’s also her way of controlling the pace and flow of action, her way of controlling what we are doing to and for her in a life where she has surrendered too much control.  It’s Marty saying, “I’m watching you, I’m setting the pace and I’m making sure you are prepared.  You got me?”

In a deeper more introspective way it’s a question Marty always wanted to know, always wanted to ask but never really did.  It’s a question all of us want to know of our family, our friends, the people we love, the people we hope love us.  We want to know, when we need a lift, when we need a hand, will you help me before I fall, “You got me?”

It took the strokes, supreme life altering events, it took a complete fracture of her life for Marty to get the courage to look me in the eye and ask me the question, “You got me?”  She was never sure we would, get her, help her if things fell apart.  She wasn’t sure we loved her enough, she wasn’t sure she should be loved that much, she didn’t ever know if she was that lovable.  It’s hard for any of us to think we are that worthy.  

I have to confess, there have been a lot of times in my life, up to and including today, when I wanted to turn to Marty, to friends, to family and ask the question, “You got me?”  Pride makes it almost impossible; pride says the question makes you weak, pride says you can’t ask before you fall, pride says you can’t express fear of falling.  Pride keeps us from hearing love.  

Reality, ego, our very essence says we need to know that there are people around us who will not let us fall too far and if we fall they will be there to pick us up.  We have to believe, we just can’t ask, we can’t be that vulnerable.  

Marty is not unique there, just like most of us not sure of our self worth, she has felt the pull and push of ego and pride, but because of her broken brain she has found the courage, the need, to ask the simple question, “Will you keep me from falling, do you love me enough, am I worthy of that kind of love.”

The strokes have put Marty in an uninviting but unique position in life.  She gets to see how much she is loved, she gets to see how much her husband cares for her, she gets to see how steadfast her children are, she gets to see her family lift her up and close ranks around her.  Most of us have to die and be eulogized at our funeral to find that, and then it’s kind of late for it to matter.

I am painfully aware I haven’t always showed it to Marty; I know I never said it enough and I am certain I never said it in a way she truly believed.  Marty has had to live through a part of life we all want to avoid  to discover that  I will never let her fall, that I will always love her enough and that she is worthy of all our love.  

The truth is, most of the time, through most of our lives, today and every day, I hope I am worthy of her.  You bet I got her.

The MakeUp is Hard to Do

The parents of my entire life celebrated sixty years of wedded bliss on Christmas Eve. Right before the New Year we gathered with family and friends at a very nice club in downtown Fort Worth to help them celebrate this milestone. We had great food, drink, stories, and a plethora of misty eyes as we all took partial credit for my parent’s accomplishment.

Marty and I were thrilled to make the trip to be a part of the celebration. Over the last couple of years we have grown ever bolder in our attempts to live a more “normal” life and we love that we can participate in these kinds of events; we have missed too many and too much.

Travelling with Marty requires planning and forethought. It’s hard for Marty; it’s both physically and emotionally taxing for both of us. It takes extra work and planning for all of us including our caregivers, but the reward, the reward of seeing Marty alive and participating, the joy of seeing her tax her brain as she communicates and relates with others is worth all of the work, the planning, and the expected accompanying angst.

Marty spent the morning and early afternoon before our trip reposing in her bed. We both took our Saturday baths on Thursday that week and we donned our best Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. Marty even pulled out some of her jewelry and then retired to her bed to conserve her energy until it was time to leave.

We were waiting between caregivers and I sat with Marty, both of us on her bed watching television. As I was sitting with her, pondering the coming drive, I looked at her and realized we had not done any makeup. Now Marty is 56 and has remarkable skin, a really remarkable complexion given what she has endured. Marty never has never worn a lot of make-up and rarely wears any now; frankly she looks great without it, but, this is one of those special occasions that required just a bit of enhancement.

Before Marty broke her strong right arm, I could provide her a mirror, the right supplies and she could do the job on her own. This time, the making up deed fell to me. Imagine if you will a ham fisted West Texas guy coming at your face with toner and blush. That was me, a big lunk with slightly trembling hands.

I said, “Marty, what do I do with this?” She would look at me, sigh and then direct me.

As I started to decorate Marty’s face I took my Momma’s cooking advice to heart,” you can always add more, but it is hard to take salt out of the meat loaf,” and I put the toner on sparingly. Marty directed me to her cheeks, her forehead and her nose; she said it was to reduce the shine.

Then came the mascara, you know, the stuff that comes in tubes with the itty-bitty brushes that make your eyelashes longer and fuller, that stuff. I shook the bottle, I’m a compulsive bottle shaker, and pulled out the brush and slowly approached Marty’s eyelashes. Marty tried her best to keep her eye lids from fluttering, I tried my best to keep my hand from shaking and I gently and tentatively touched the brush to her eye lashes. They got bigger and longer, I was overwhelmed with courage and boldness.

I put the brush back in the mascara bottle and shook it again, emboldened by my success. Marty still wasn’t vert confident of my artistic skills and her eyelids still trembled. This time I went for the right eye and as I was moving in I managed to brush the bridge of her nose with the mascara. Shaken by the misstep I forged ahead, dabbed a bit on her the eyelashes on her right eye and promptly smeared the mascara on her eye lid.

Saying “OOOPs”, is probably not the best thing one could say when applying makeup to your loved one. Marty jerked and I smeared a bit more mascara on her right eye. I stepped back from my handiwork, wet a washcloth and delicately tried to remove all of the mascara remnants from the improper places, like eyelids and noses and my left hand.

Remarkably Marty trusted me to finish the eyelashes and then move on to the lipstick. I put some on her lips, then a little more, desperately trying to color between the lines. I finally declared complete capitulation and Marty said, “I need a mirror, right now.” I said, “Yes you do, hang tight for a second.”

I ran and got the mirror thankful I had removed the misapplied mascara. Marty looked in the mirror, pursed her lips, and then puckered her lips just like she had done hundreds of times after applying her own lipstick. She tilted her chin down, then to each side inspecting the damage and declared, “Not bad.”

Frankly I thought the whole thing was a lot better than “not bad.” I thought it something of a miracle. It wasn’t so much a miracle that this fat handed West Texas boy was applying lipstick to his wife, the miracle was that she let me, that she trusted me to do it. That’s “not bad.”