It's Her Birthday

August 23^rd, Marty’s dad, Arty, was born in 1925, I think I have the year correct.  August 23^rd, Marty’s birthday twin, Ellen Elliot, was born, seven years ago.  August 23^rd, 1954, Marty Jean Watkins came into the world in Clovis, New Mexico.  

The world, at least for some of us, was irrevocably changed, mostly for the better.

It’s been about 13 weeks since Marty left us, I want to say left me but that’s not even close to accurate, she left a lot of us in May.

I’m not sure what to do with this day, I’m just not.  It’s sad, it’s okay, if’s fine 3.0.  I’m just not sure how this day is supposed to work anymore.

When Marty’s dad passed away in 2004 I know Marty dreaded that first August 23^rd when she wouldn’t be able to sing “Happy Birthday to Us” with her Dad.  The first stroke kept her from having to deal with that day.

I’ve talked to both Erin and Matt today and I think they feel the same way I do, a bit of confusion on how to do this day.  It’s sad, I mean real live sad, but somehow on Marty’s birthday, on this August 23^rd we can’t be washed in simple grief and sadness.  

Somehow I think we, I know Marty would have wanted, must “suck it up” and remember on this day the Marty that was, the Marty that made us laugh, that made us cry, that made us think, that made us love, that made us understand love, that made us have courage. 

The Marty that touched my soul.  

I think today of all days I want to remember sitting around the dinner (supper if you’re from the country like me) table talking with the kids and asking them about their day, asking them who they sat with at lunch, asking them what they learned.

I want to remember the little sticky note Marty gave me with an imprint of her lips on them, the sticky note I carried in my billfold for years to remind me who I was.

I want to remember sitting in a garage of a rental house in Lubbock Texas watching and smelling the rain as Marty and I fell in love.

I want to remember watching her ski down the slopes at Red River and Angel Fire.  I want to remember her pulling me out of a snow drift in Breckenridge Colorado.

I want to remember lying in bed with Marty, laughing about something completely stupid that no one else in the world would have thought that funny.  

I want to remember the encouragement, the advice, the ear she gave me when work seemed 

impossible.

I want to remember the way she cradled and loved our children.  I want to remember her working on a paper Mache shark for one of Matt’s projects.  I want to remember her working on a video for a little girl named Erin who was thinking about being a doctor.

I want to remember how she cried when we dropped off the kids at college, and how we felt a mutual pride that they were ready and maybe we helped with that.

I want to remember a woman who was broken by a deadly stroke who stood on a rehab staircase, raised her hands in celebration and shook her back side.

I want to remember a woman who held my hand tightly and looked me dead in the eyes and said I love you too many times to count.

There’s just so much there, so many amazing moments and things I think about every day when my heart allows my mind to go there.  So many years, so many good things, so many happy moments interspersed with the worst of all times.

On this day, on this day when it feels so sad, when the mind realizes the magnitude of the loss, I remember her smile and her laugh, both of which always did and always will fill me with an eternal happiness.

Three Massively Brilliant Thoughts

It’s always a little dangerous to look back, but when I do, when I go back to the days after we first came home from Marty’s second stroke I am aghast at how stupid I was.  I knew nothing about caring for the needs of someone like Marty.  

The good thing was I knew how stupid I was.

The next good thing, I learned.  I read, I watched, I talked, I learned from my mistakes.  And there were mistakes and there was a lot of anxiety and sweat.

Care giving is not my native skill.  Care giving is not something I thought I could do.  I told one of Marty’s physical therapists about my lack of skill and she said, “Don’t worry, you will figure it out.”  She was right.  It takes time and you never stop evolving, but you do figure out some stuff.

As a virgin care giver I was constantly worried about when to call the doctor.  Before Marty got sick I had never worried about when to call the doctor because Marty always knew when to call the doctor, now I was tasked with that responsibility for someone who could not self-diagnose or even say, “I feel shitty”.  I didn’t want to overlook something real and I didn’t want to be one of those guys that are constantly bugging the doctor’s office with nonsense.  I didn’t know how to do any of that.

My doctor gave me a great prescription, “Don’t worry about calling too much, just follow your instinct, listen to your gut”.  He was right; there was no one who knew Marty better.  Even if I was a novice and trying to understand the new Marty, I knew her the best and was with her the most.  That’s what I did, I followed my instinct and it turns out my instincts have been pretty good.

Follow your instincts, listen to the little voice in your head (just don’t talk to it out loud, that makes you sound nuts).

Not long after we got home after the first stroke Marty got sick again.  We were home in mid-June, at the ER at the first of July.  I was overwhelmed; I just couldn’t see how I was ever going to live like this.  I didn’t care that others had done it; I knew I couldn’t handle the pressure, I knew it was only a matter of days before we were back in the hospital again and that every cough, sneeze, or stretch was a harbinger of the next major illness.

My friend Judy, an old friend, sent me a note quoting her doctor.  She wrote that her doctor once told her, “just because you hear hoof beats doesn’t mean its zebras.”  As humans we too often have a tendency to look to the worst case or make something into something it isn’t.  Not every cough is pneumonia, not ever stretch is a seizure, not every grimace is another stroke.  

There’s a fine line between maximizing and ignoring, just remember there aren’t that many zebras in the world.  Don’t immediately assume the worst.

The last piece of brilliant advice I have is live it day to day, procedure to procedure, illness to illness. It’s so easy to say, it’s so hard to do.  I struggled too often and still do with what I would call “burying Marty”.  I must have planned Marty’s funeral a hundred times.  When my gut told me she was sick, my gut, too often said she was dying.  It is brutal and futile to live the death of someone you love every day.  

It kept from participating in life because I might be planning a funeral.  The truth is, I was planning a funeral and it was crazy making.  The plain and simple truth was and is Marty might out live me, I just don’t know and to pretend I do is crazy, isolating and a little dangerous.

When I finally made the transition to taking things one at a time my life, our life, got better.  I became more engaged with the outside world and I got Marty more engaged in everything.  We didn’t hide from the world, we started trying to meet life on the new terms we had.  It wasn’t great, it was hard, it is still hard, but so very much better.  I hate funerals.

Live your life, live your life day to day, one issue at a time, it’s not quite as overwhelming and you still get to the end, and the ride is much more enjoyable.

I’m not going to self-righteously say I am successful at doing these three things.  I’m not; I struggle with all of them.  

But, I do trust myself and my instincts about Marty and we have a doctor who asks, “What is your gut telling you.”  I consistently remind myself of my friend’s message, it’s probably not as bad as it seems and I work really hard at not borrowing trouble from the future and living our life on a day to day basis.  

These things make the terrible and deeply rewarding job of care giving and learning from Marty better.  These things make me better for Marty and that’s really a big deal to me.

Starting a New Journey

The journey to acceptance of difference starts with simple presence, it starts with familiarity, it starts with understanding.  Marty and I started that process with young people who matter to us.

I taught Sunday school for several years.  From the time our son Matt was in high school until daughter Erin graduated I taught their Sunday school classes.  It was the best way to ensure that the three of us got up and went to church, it seemed right.

In those years of teaching I rarely went long without being taught, without learning more about my own faith than I could ever impart to 15 year olds who mostly came for the donuts.

It’s still the same, the more I think I know, the more I want to educate, the more I find out from those around me.  

After Marty and I had met with the youth of our church I walked out of the church refreshed, optimistic and feeling renewed.  Marty had risen above her natural self consciousness and apprehension and had listened and talked.  She was involved, funny and, well, Marty, confined yet not defined by her circumstance.  

  

Those kids listened, they turned their young minds to us, they paid attention, and more importantly they moved beyond the tendency of focusing on self.  They focused on Marty and her life and I think they got to know her just a little; they got to know Marty as I know her.

I don’t know if they heard everything I was saying, it doesn’t matter if they heard everything, they clearly heard some things and they were attentive to Marty and maybe, just a little, tried to get into her head and her life.

We talked about Marty; we talked about our life, our old normal, our new normal, our faith, and our lack thereof, or more precisely, my lack thereof.   Marty has never wavered in her faith in a higher power, in fact, her faith has only gotten stronger.  She was always stronger than me.

I pointed out to these young minds how they are connected to Marty and how Marty is forever connected to our church, the people in the church and in particular the young people in our church.  I told them about Marty’s work with the youth program and how the program was stronger and how Marty was stronger for her efforts.  

I talked about Marty and how serious she took her commitments and that one of those commitments was to our children and the children our church.  I talked about how important the baptismal promise was to Marty, that when she committed to helping them with their faith at their baptism, she meant it and that was part of why she was committed to the youth that came before them and why, even interrupted, she was committed to the young people who were in the room with her that night. 

They listened politely with very few yawns and no cell phones, they listened.  They asked questions, they asked good questions, they asked questions about feelings and faith, they asked questions about doubt and anger, they asked questions about simple living and dealing with fear and dying.  They were good questions that they directed not just at me but at Marty…..and of course Marty rose to the occasion and answered.

At the end they all wrote affirmations, small notes on small cards for Marty, for me, small words of encouragement and wisdom from those so young.  It’s a ritual of our youth program and other youth programs that you leave these meetings with words of faith, love and encouragement.  I’ve felt the love of young people before, it’s still there, it’s still powerful, it still means a lot.

The affirmations expressed kindness, empathy and a very simple wisdom, an understanding of what makes a whole person.  One was a drawing, a simple drawing that very neatly captured what we all want to believe about ourselves.  

We started our journey with these young fertile minds that Sunday evening.  Any journey starts with steps, this one started with being in each other’s presence and listening and talking and learning. 

 

I am moved by the openness, I am a captive of the compassion of those so young.  It is encouraging for our life.