Poop or Chocolate?

There it was, poop, on my hand.  I reached for the first thing I could find, a tissue, at tissue on the cabinet, a used tissue, and without thinking wiped away the poop leaving a residue of snot on my hand. 

This is care giving my friends.

The best part about this, and truly, truly, there aren’t many best parts of stuff like this, it doesn’t really bother me anymore.  I no longer dry heave, I no longer shudder and recoil, I just wipe off the dirt with more dirt.  Its life and frankly with warm water and soap you can clean any part of your body. 

You can really tell you are settling into your role with all of this if you can stomach the nasty stuff, then tell the story and laugh about it.  As Marty sat in her chair and I told her, “I just cleaned my poopy hands with your snot,” she busted out laughing.

Caring for someone who is unable to care for themselves is going to be dirty.  People do stuff that is smelly and, at times, a little revolting, it’s just a fact of life when you are dealing with people.   If you haven’t had to get dirty with the person you love, if you haven’t gotten on the ground and smelled the sometimes acrid odor of life just wait, you will.  Caring for someone requires you smell the both the roses and the fertilizer.

Love is not easy.  We watch the rom-coms at the movies and it’s always the same formula, fall in love, things are great, go through an ugly event in life, come back together as the music swells.  In real life you occasionally have to pick up dirty underwear or shave in the company of someone sitting on the toilet.  It’s real life, we gotta do some stuff.

I did some stuff with our kids, I cleaned up puke, I wiped noses and butts.   I don’t remember having to fish poop out of the bath but I’ve seen my son do it.  It’s not something anyone likes, it’s something you get to brag about later and something you get to laugh at your son about when his children make a mess in the tub. 

Here’s the thing (I actually say, “here’s the thing” in real life when I’m going to make a particularly keen point) caring for someone you love, caring for someone who is sick or broken in some way is hard and is messy.  Heck, the truth is loving someone, really loving someone, is hard and messy, it just is and don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise.  Being in love, loving is hard dirty work.

It’s also incredibly rewarding and life sustaining.  I’ve said it more times than you care to read or hear but caring for Marty is purely and simply the best and most decent thing I have ever done in my 62 years.  I feel more important, more valuable, more loved by my love than ever and that my friend is the greatest reward there is.

I’m reminded of the scene in the movie Baby Momma where the veteran parent looks at the brown spot on her child, wipes it with her finger and asks her child, “Is this poop or chocolate?” as the mother to be looks on horrified that someone would so casually touch what is potentially poop.  The Mom then touches her fouled finger to her tongue and pronounces, “Chocolate.”  Cracked me up.

That’s the way it is, only sometimes it really is poop, which is okay because it washes off.

It's Marty's Birthday

Yesterday two of our grand kids went to school.  Lily started real kindergarten and Noah, the old pro, started first grade.  Today their grandmother, my bride of 40 years has a birthday, she turns 62.  These are big days.

I knew our kids would grow and have kids, I knew when grand kids came along they would grow and go to school.  Frankly, there were many days I did not know if Marty would see her 62nd birthday.  Ten years ago it didn’t seem likely, ten years ago it didn’t seem likely see would see 55.

But, here we are, our kid’s kids being real human beings growing and starting new amazing chapters and Marty surviving against the rather ugly odds of two strokes.

Life is an incredible journey.

I know our grand kids  and their parents, our kids, will survive their first days and the next days.  They are good, smart kids who will thrive.  There will be dark days, even in kindergarten and first grade, that is life, but they will walk through the dark days and find light at the end.


In celebrating Marty’s birthday we understand that the next birthday is not a guarantee.  Eleven years ago we celebrated Marty’s 51st birthday, the one after her first stroke, I was still pretty naive about Marty’s prognosis and how our life was going to turn.  I talked a good game about not taking any days or any firsts or any lasts for granted.  I thought I understood how precarious life could be.  I didn’t.

I think I got it now.  I think I understand that neither Marty nor I are guaranteed a 63rd birthday.  The 2nd stroke pretty well convinced me that we all walk a very thin precious line between here and gone so I think it’s important to recognize and celebrate the milestones.

On Marty’s 62nd birthday I want her to know she is loved, I want her to know she is amazing, I want her to know that I don’t take one day, not one damn day, of her presence for granted.  I want her to know she is, in my eyes a living miracle and a testament to God’s grace.

Today Marty turns 62 and our two of our grand kids go to a 2nd day of school.  Here’s to many a happy day for all and here’s to 63 and all the little days in between.

Class of Seventy-Two

I’m 44 years and 250 miles removed from the red dirt of my home town, Colorado City Texas.  As we drove along the back roads of Texas, as we drove through Bangs and Zephyr and crossed Bearfoot Creek and Yellow Wolf Creek, as we moved from oak to scrub oak to large mesquite to small mesquite I began to feel the familiarity of home, a home long time gone.

Skip, a literal lifelong friend, and I drove into town, from the south.  We drove into a town I left in 1972, the summer after I graduated from high school.  I have returned to west Texas infrequently for reunions, Skip a little more often.  The town is different, it has evolved, it has changed, it has aged, just as we have.

My childhood homes, the houses I grew up in are long gone, no buildings, no foundations, no nothing.  The earth has started the process of reclaiming the road where I learned to play baseball and ride bikes and where I played under the street lights with neighbors.  In time, I suspect, the only thing left to mark our lives there will be two solitary cattle guards, guarding nothing but pasture grass and mesquite trees.

The town is different, it feels different.  Just like me, like Skip, like all who attended this reunion from all six graduating classes, the town has celebrated success, suffered from natural aging, mourned radical change and evolved in a world where evolution leaves nothing unscathed.

It’s interesting that this part of the world still has such a gravitational pull on my psyche.  As we drove into the town it still felt like home.  My old house is gone, every piece of the home I knew for years has been eradicated, but the town, the little west Texas red dirt town still feels a lot like home to me.

The town holds my memories, it holds my history, it connects me to that part of my life where I started to become a real human being.  It connects some of the dots; it connects some of the trails I’ve walked to get to where I am today.

The memories of skies turned orange from the dust from cotton gins in October, learning how to put on footballs pads, and marching down 2^nd Street with the junior high band while Bob Newman, the band director, walked the sidewalks confiscating pea shooters from the local hoodlums intent on shooting the band are still very much alive.

 I never feel the first cold winds of winter without thinking of those skies and those times spent with my friends enjoying free life in a small town.

It really does come down to the people, the people who, in spite of the miles and years, are the only ones who know a special part of your life.  It’s the history you have with these people, not the number of years, not the continuous contact.  They are all part of your formation, all part of your connection to your past, to your own history, to your beginnings and your essence.  These are the people that knew who you were before you were an adult, before you were changed by the vagaries of life. 

It all comes down to Skip and Dean and Randy and David and Sherry and Barbara and Sharon and all of those who also hold the memories who are also connected to this little town.  Its Fay and Debra and Sonny and Wayne and Dewain and Mark and Judy and Kathy and Carolyn who lived through the same times, who remember what it was like when we heard about JFK being assassinated, who watched the same dumb television shows and watched the Beatles and listened to American Band Stand and know who Sky King is.  These people hold the key to your memories and they will forever be a part of your beginning, your growing up, your heart break, your tragedy, your victories, your failures and your recoveries.

Sorry guys but you’re there for life whether you want to be or not, you get to all be a part of who I am as I carry on with Marty, with my kids and with my grandchildren.  You are a part of me as I am, like it or not, a part of you. 

That’s why it makes sense to stop in every now and then and talk.  I like that.

Hearing Fear

I was eavesdropping, sort of, maybe.  I mean can you call it eavesdropping if you are two rooms away listening another person’s phone conversation?  I listened to the mother, I listened to one side of a two sided conversation, I listened to a mother express love…..and fear.

I didn’t know who she was talking to for sure, I figured it was a son, it sounded like a son conversation.   I listened to only her side but I knew what was being said on bother sides of the call.  I think her son was saying I want to go out; I want to go party a little with my friends.  I know the kid, he’s old enough, he’s as responsible as any college kid is, he’s a good young man on the verge of finishing college.

The mother said, that makes me scared.

I heard her end of the conversation, I heard her say that other good kids, good guys had gone out not looking for problems but that problems found them and they were dead.
The mother said she was scared.

I don’t ever remember having or hearing that conversation with our son.  I never had that conversation with my parents.  We told ours and mine told me, always respect the police, they are the authority, respect the authority.  We never felt fear.

Sure we worried like all parents, like my parents, that’s a parent’s job.  I remember worrying about wrecks, about bad behavior, about normal misbehavior.  I never worried about my kid being pulled over by the police, I never worried about my kid getting questioned for DWB (driving while black), I never worried not one time ever that my kid would be shot by the people we fundamentally trust with everything.

The mother was scared; she was scared about things I have never faced, fears I have never felt, fears I suspect, I will never feel, except for children like hers.

I could hear it in her voice, this was real fear, not feigned racial indignation, not noise for a nosy guy eavesdropping, she had no idea I was intruding on her conversation.  She was worried and has been worried, not only for her sons but her brothers.

She has had “the talk” with all of her sons.  Her brothers have had “the talk” with her sons, you know the one, the one where they tell these young black men to watch what they say, to watch how they act, to never question the authority of a law enforcement officer and to always keep their hands where they can be seen.

Is this real?  Is there a real danger to these young men, do they really need to fear for their lives from people we should always, always trust the most?  It doesn’t matter, it matters that a mother is scared. It doesn’t matter if you or I as white folk in America believe it; it is a black man in America’s reality. It is the reality of the mother of those black men.

I love the police and since I gave up a somewhat sketchy youth I am never too concerned about passing a police officer, though I always check my speed.  I am in awe of the job they do and could never do the societal duties we ask of them.

These brave men and women do a job most of us, frankly, would be too frightened to do.  Cops do dirty, hard, dangerous work every day to make the lives of other people better.  Law enforcement deserves our respect, support and appreciation.

None of that means the mother I heard is not scared.  None of that means her sons and her brothers aren’t in more jeopardy than my white son.

I don’t know the answer to the problem.  I am not that smart.  I do know the start of the answer, ask the  people that know the questions, do you fear, do you trust?

Then believe the answer, it’s real.

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.

A Legacy In Spite of it All

I’ve whined about this before so let’s continue the whine.  I wish that my grandchildren were able to really get to know Marty, the way Marty was, the energy that was Marty before the strokes.  I wish it for me, I wish it for them, I wish it for our kids, I wish it for Marty.

Alas, wishes like these don’t really come true, sort of.

Our daughter Erin posted the following conversation with her daughter Lily on her face book page:

Me: What did you have for snack today?

Lily: The Snack Fairy brought us red and yellow goldfish. I know the Snack Fairy isn’t real. It’s really Miss Morton. Some kids think she is real though…

Me: Well that’s cool. They can believe whatever they want and I bet it makes them super happy to believe that. So…don’t argue with them about it.

Lily: No…

Me: Why not? Are they hurting anyone if they believe in the Snack Fairy?

Lily: No…I just don’t like it.

Me: Hmmm… Remember how we believe in Jesus and God?

Lily: Yes…they are REALLY real.

Me: Well…yes, but some people don’t believe they are…Some people believe in something else completely different than us. Are we hurting anyone else by believing in God and Jesus?

Lily: No!

Me: Do we have to change what we believe just because someone else doesn’t feel the same way?

Lily: No…

Me: Exactly. It’s not a matter of being right or wrong. It’s about respecting other people. So…as long as we aren’t hurting anyone with what we believe, we can believe whatever we want and other people can too! And guess what?! We can all still be friends. So….if tomorrow a friend at school says, “I know the Snack Fairy is REAL…” You can say, “Hey that’s super cool!” And leave it at that…Got it kid?

Lily: Got it Mom…

This interaction is so Erin, it is so Marty.  In a simple conversation tolerance, love, acceptance, understanding is taught and modeled in a way Lily will always remember.

I see it a lot, I see it in both of our children, I see the mother Marty in the mother Erin, I see the mother Marty in the father Matt, our son, I see so much of Marty in our children and it makes my heart smile.

I too often have worried, will our kids remember the lessons and the life of the real Marty, will their children ever know the fun that was Marty, the crazy that was Marty, the passion, the love, the fire that was Marty. 

The fact is the children of our children will never get to see and feel what was.  I worry, I mourn.

And then I see our kids with their kids, I see Marty; I see her wit and wisdom and passion living through Matt and Erin.

I suspect it’s what all of us want.  We want our good stuff to live on, we want the good stuff that made us who we are carried on by our off spring, it’s positively instinctual.  It makes me feel like a real father, I know it makes Marty feel like a human being again, to see our DNA, our life carried on in the people we raised.

I am in love with and proud of my wife.  I am amazed at who she is today, I am forever grateful to the woman she was and I often long for the person she was before life changed.  That memory and love for Marty, at times, makes me sad for the losses we have all endured and that sadness is magnified at those times when I think our grandchildren will never know what was lost.

And then I watch our children and realize how they carry their mother with them, always. 

That sadness never goes away, that sadness is mollified when I see our children carrying Marty with them.

Choosing Best Among the Worst

With apologies to Mrs. C Hall, my high school English teacher, this first paragraph is not really a summary of the body of this essay, I promise, I’m not taking you on a political ride.

I hear a whole lot of people expressing disappointment in our choices for President of the USA this cycle.  In all likelihood we will have to choose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Drumpf, oh my bad, Trump.  Most everyone I know does not like our choices.

 It’s kind of like going to a restaurant and only getting to order liver or sweet breads, most don’t want either.  The good thing is we don’t have to go to restaurants like that; we get to make other choices because we have alternatives, in politics, in life, at times, good choices don’t happen, sometimes only hard choice happen, hard choices that absolutely require you select one of the bad choices.

Marty and I, like all of you, sometimes get to choose between hitting our thumb with a hammer, or the other choice, hitting our thumb with a hammer, harder.  That’s life, sometimes our choices simply suck and either way you turn your thumb is going to hurt.

As a young white male growing up in middle class America I have to admit, I was a bit shocked when I discovered that all of our choices weren’t good choices.  I was surprised to learn that sometimes you have to pick things that you don’t particularly like. 

And to top it off, in too many cases, not choosing is not an alternative.  Not voting, not choosing between two candidates you don’t particularly like means you don’t participate in one of the most important acts of a citizen.  Sometimes you just have to suck it up and act, as one of my really smart bosses once told me, “Grieve and get over it,” and then make a choice.

About five years ago while in the hospital for a routine infection  Marty had a bad seizure and broke her right arm, her good strong right arm, the arm not affected by the stroke, the arm she used for everything from support when standing to eating to drinking, you know, little things like that.  We sat in the hospital with two choices, surgery to repair the shattered bone or do nothing and let the arm heel with some level of disability in that arm.  Both choices were real clear, both choices sucked big time.

I, we, talked to each other, we talked to Great and Wise and the Orthopedic guy, we talked to our kids, we talked to friends, we did pros and cons, we thought, we mulled, we cogitated, there were no good choices, none.  It seemed wrong to make the intentional decision to NOT heal a broken wing.  It was frightening to think we would decide to have Marty undergo surgery and all of the associated risks for an unknown result.

We sucked it up and made the decision to not do anything, it wasn’t the best choice, there wasn’t a best choice, it was pick one and live with it, “Grieve and get over it.”

Did we make the correct choice?  I don’t know.   Marty’s life was not jeopardized by anesthesia and invasive surgery, she did not have to go through the pain of recovery and she did not face possible deadly infections.  She does have to endure somewhat limited movement in her arm.  That was the choice; it’s the choice we made, it was a choice she lives with daily.  That’s how life works some times.

We, all of us, are consistently confronted with choices, some good, some bad, some really awful.  Sometimes, like a Hobson's choice, we don’t really get a choice; we have to pick the only real option open to us.  It really is indicative of life, sometimes it all amounts to making the best of what is.

I don’t particularly like the choice between Clinton and Drumpf.  I know who I think is the best qualified of the two and I know who I will probably support.  I won’t tell you who that is but I think, if we can get past some of her baggage she will be fine. 

Marty is not where she is today because anyone would choose her life, but rest assured she is here because she, we made a conscious choice to live the best life she, we could given the options.  Life is not about easy choices or even good choices, but it is about choosing.