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…..

Hell of a Guy

I have been pooped on, peed on, phlegmed on, and puked on.  The last years have tested me, they have tested my marriage.  Uncontrolled bodily fluids will do that.

It’s not my fault, it’s not Marty’s fault.  In point of fact she is a bit embarrassed about the whole thing.  There is nothing anyone anywhere can do about it and no one need be embarrassed, it’s part of life and all of us get to live it at some time in or life.

Before the strokes came I had no idea I would be capable of doing some of the things I’m now doing, it wasn’t, it isn’t in my DNA.  What chronic illness does, what strokes do is demand you adapt, they demand you do things you normally would run from, the illnesses demand you be someone you didn’t think you could be.

That’s the disease and that’s the real strength of marriage.  All of the crap, all of the distasteful stuff you end up learning is part of the contract, the commitment, the promise you make to someone else. 

I’m not sure I would have committed to so much if I had known so much would be asked.  I’m one hell of a husband to accept all of this, to embrace and endure the burden that is caring for a stroke patient; I am clearly a hell of a guy.

Yep….but this hell of a guy does this for a woman, a woman I fell in love with some 35+ years ago.  She’s a woman who changed her name for me, she’s a woman who stood beside me when I was unemployed and she was our sole support.  She did nothing but exude confidence in me when I was at my lowest.  

I married a woman who was smarter than me but often let me think I was smarter than I am.  She moved across the state for me, from Lubbock to Paris to Muenster to Hillsboro and Waco.  She didn’t do it without thought or complaint, but she did it because she loved me and she had promised to love and honor even during the hard times.

This woman I so selflessly sacrifice for is the woman who changed her body so we could have heirs, wonderful children; she is the woman who sacrificed herself and her career to help care for these children, the woman who would let our children eat her desert so I wouldn’t have to share. 

Yep, I’m a hell of a guy.

Marty has continued to teach this “hell of a guy”, she has continued to guide this “hell of a guy”, even in her worst of times.  She has shown me I can live up to my commitments, she has shown me I can love without condition or regret and give without resentment, she has shown me I can do what I never thought I could.  She leads me to be a better man every day.

Humans are capable of amazing things and we somehow, despite our best efforts, manage to change into what is needed.  Look around, look and in the mirror and you will find there are many out there who watch over and care for those who can’t do for themselves.  Every day people, husbands like me, wives like Marty, mothers and fathers who get poop, puke and pee on their hands, people who do very dirty jobs they didn’t choose and didn’t think they could do, but do them without thinking, without pause.  

As you get older, as your marriage or your relationship advances you simply do what you must, not because you are a hell of guy or woman, not because God only gives us what we can endure, not because we are angels.  

We do things because we love, it’s what we do when we commit, it’s what we do as decent members of humanity, it’s how we as humanity survive.  We adapt and become maybe a little better than we ever thought we could be.  

We simply do the most decent thing we have ever done.

Hell of a guy……hell of a wife.

A Heartfelt Confession

I had an epiphany, the epiphany led to dangerous self reflection and the result is this confession. As a man, as a son, as a husband, this is where I come clean, where I purge and unfortunately rat out my gender compatriots. To the wives of the world I lay prostrate, to the husbands, I’m sorry I have laid bare one of our many dark secrets.
 
Fresh strawberries, light yogurt, crushed ice, skim milk and Splenda blended to just the right consistency is a great topping to an evening of television fun. Like the wild man that I am I started depositing the above ingredients into our blender, without measuring anything. I then scraped out the last of the yogurt from the container and dropped the spoon into the blender to get all of that yummy stuff off. I sliced the strawberries, ate one, sliced a couple more for good measure and took the container to the blender base to blend. As soon as I hit high on the blender I remembered the spoon because of the god awful racket coming from what was left of my blender.

The liquid that was to be a cool, sweet refreshing smoothie started seeping out of the bottom of the blender all over the counter top. Being the guy I am I didn’t immediately understand what I had done and lifted the blender from the motor and more liquid quickly flowed from the now broken blender and started to run down the front of the cabinets and onto the dogs water and food dishes. Maggie the dauschund thought that was pretty cool as she lapped up the yogurt and milk. I quickly moved the dripping blender to the sink, dripping the goodness from the wounded appliance on the floor, on my feet and in the sink.

This is where the epiphany and ensuing self appraisal began. I grabbed a bar towel and started to wipe up my mess, which was a pretty impressive mess at this point. I had milky, yogurty, strawberry liquid everywhere and I tentatively dabbed, then mopped with the lone bar towel. I saw where I had managed to get the goo on front of the cabinets and on Maggie’s dishes and took a half-hearted swipe at the mess. Clearly there were still remnants of my mistake on the floor, on the cabinet doors, on the busted blender base but I started to move on anyway leaving it for someone else.

Herein lies the confession…. my name is Marty’s Husband and I’m clearly a half-ass cleaner. I have gone through life hitting the big spots, the obvious puddle on the counter, while blowing off the small spots, the sticky stuff, the stuff on the floor and the cabinet doors and the crevices of the blender. I was struck by my own dereliction of duty to my house.

When Marty and I roamed and ran the house together I used to take great pride in doing the dishes after supper, the easy dishes. I almost always, make that always, left my bride with the worst pan, the caked on pan, the burned food on the bottom pot, the pan too big for the dishwasher. I took credit for the dishes done, but I had dear Marty cleaning behind me.

It’s wasn’t just cleaning. I could always count on Marty to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer when I “forgot” or pick up that little piece of paper I dropped on the floor or put water in the dog’s water bowl or simply make some logistical but mundane decisions. Having that partner in your life who helps pick up, clean up and finish up after you becomes so habit forming you begin to count on it. Until….

Until the strokes changed everything and our roles in our marriage simply reversed.

Until the one who always completed your sentences can’t follow behind you anymore and all of the sudden you are standing in the middle of a puddle of goo and there is no one to clean it except you.

Until you figure out that the toothpick on the floor will stay on the floor until you either step on it or pick it up because you are it, there is no one following you to help, to finish, completing the task.

Until you recognize and accept the fact you alone are responsible for your muck.

As I stood in the middle of the kitchen, resigned to my task, coming to grips with my own shortcomings over the years I could picture Marty coming behind me with a warm wet towel and wiping the fragments of my mistake from the cabinet doors, muttering and cursing the whole time, saying to herself but loud enough for me to hear, “It would have been easier to do it right the first time.”

My epiphany, I miss the reality where I knew someone was behind me all of the time, I miss being able to have Marty have my back. My confession, I’m a closet slob, as are many of the men I know, but this time I simply wet the bar towel and began to clean thinking about my epiphany.

Lessons from an Eccentric

I can still remember riding in Marty’s parent’s big, grey Lincoln Town car that night. It was way back in the 20th century, the 70’s to be exact. It was a warm summer night in the panhandle of Texas and we were telling Marty’s parents, Arty and Jean, we were planning on getting married the following January. It was a horrifying, anxiety-ridden, sweat provoking experience for a young man who up till now had never accomplished or done anything of consequence. Marty and I were both still relative babes.

Marty’s Father, Arty, was this sort of John Wayne’sque, big, burly, rough, self-made, agricultural entrepreneur. The whole situation was completely intimidating for a long-haired do-nothing who really wanted to marry the man’s one and only baby daughter. My most fervent desire was to simply get past this entire conversation. We were in the back of this huge car, the west Texas night air still warm but cooling as the sun had set. Arty had the air conditioning in the car running full blast but I was still really hot. As I recall little beads of sweat were running down the middle of my back sticking my shirt to my back and my back to the leather of the back seat.

Marty’s Mom, Jean, was your pretty typical farmer’s wife, though not nearly as quiet and unassuming as she often pretended. Jean was a very passive-aggressive, independent woman and she was more than just a little bit of what we can politely call, eccentric. She could say and sometimes do the oddest things and woe unto the wait staff that didn’t keep her coffee cup filled. She had recently, at the insistence of Arty, quit smoking and she was forever chewing Nicorette gum and I think privately cursing Arty for putting her through this perpetual nicotine withdrawal. She was not a woman to be trifled with.

Just as we were going over a set of railroad tracks I sort of stumbled and blurted out that Marty and I wanted to get married; it’s funny what you remember and funny what you forget, I don’t remember my exact words but I remember slowing over the railroad tracks. Arty slowed the car just enough to gently roll over the tracks and kind of growled, “I’m not that surprised, I think that will be okay.” I remember feeling a small sense of relief. At least he let me stay in the car, when he slowed for the tracks I thought he might toss me on the pavement.

Arty growled and harrumphed a couple more times as we kept riding in the car toward Rita Blanca Lake, the only body of water within 100 miles. I figured I would be okay if he tried to drown me, the lake wasn’t that deep and I figured I could swim better than some old farmer.

Jean, who had been stone quite, finally turned and looked at Marty and I as we sat in the back seat. She sort of looked me up and down, then turned to Marty and speaking to both of us said, “That’s fine with me as long as you both say you can love and accept each other just as you are today, right now. You both need to know neither of you will ever change that much, you will not be able to change each other; you will not be able to fix each other. Can you say that?”

I was a bit stupefied. The person who was clearly the flakiest person in the car had very succinctly offered this very insightful, wonderfully simple advice; she intuitively provided the sage wisdom of one who has been there and known a successful and enduring marriage. Jean was clearly right, Jean was dead on, beyond making a commitment to get married, Marty and I had to make a commitment of acceptance of each other as we were right then, not what we dreamed we might become.

It was too simple, we couldn’t promise to love, honor and cherish until we died thinking, “oh I like most of her, and I can fix the rest over the years.” It just doesn’t work that way. We do grow, we do change, we do evolve, but as Jean said, we needed to be able to love and accept each other as were right then, at that moment because at our core, we are what we are and you can’t count on people changing to meet your ideas of perfection.

Me, I have always been full of advice, confident in my ignorance, borderline bombastic in my pontification. I do like to listen to myself expound from time-to-time. If I have said, “You need to” once I’ve said it a thousand times, I cringe every time I hear myself say it, but I know a lot of good stuff and other people need to listen.

I can honestly say the best advice I give, even when not asked, is what Jean told Marty and I so many years ago. That evening a reasonably frightened young man and his prospective bride heard wise words that we have tried to heed for over 30 years, because after all, as we change, as we evolve, we still need to accept who we are, right then.

Just Trust Her on This

As a father of a daughter, part of my life’s work has always been to frown at the boys Erin drug into our home. I’m not a particularly intimidating fellow but I did my best to really frown and look threatening at all of the guys who wanted to date or in any way get to know my baby girl. They all needed to know I had my girl’s best interests at heart and their interest should never bump into my interests or I would get excessively cranky. Marty, bless her heart, she just laughed at me.

Over the years Erin has drug in several guys, all okay in one way or another, none really acceptable to “the Dad”. None really lived up to the perfect sort of man for Erin, you know, a guy like, well me. Then one day she brought Lyle home. I don’t remember that first introduction, but I do know it didn’t occur to me at the time he was a contender for my daughter’s heart. My first impression was the same as most of the guys I had met, he didn’t really measure up to my standards, perfect, but that was okay, I figured he was just kind of a passing fancy.

It wasn’t long before we began to understand Lyle was not a temporary kind of thing, it appeared he was going to be a somewhat regular fixture with Erin. Frankly, I was a bit perplexed as he didn’t really seem to fit the mold of the previous suitors; he wasn’t necessarily the guy I would have selected but then I wasn’t picking and apparently didn’t get a whole lot of input in the selecting. I pressed Erin a bit on this fact in a lot of subtle and some not so subtle ways like, “what the hell are you thinking anyway”. She came back with, “trust me on this”. My response, “fine, it’s your life.” Sure.

Slowly we began to get to know Lyle and he began to know Erin’s family and our particular situation. I watched Lyle closely, I watched Lyle with Erin, I watched Lyle with Marty. I wanted to gauge his level of comfort with Marty, test his level of comfort with her as a person, and as Erin’s mother. I wanted to see how he handled Marty’s disability.

Lyle had never known Marty before her strokes; he didn’t know exactly how smart, how quick, how funny she was. He didn’t know Marty as the protective, meddling, problem solving consummate Mother she had been. He only saw her as she was today, a person in a wheelchair with significant disabilities. He was not scared, he was not put off, he was not afraid. He touched her, he hugged her, he talked to her as a person, he kissed her and let her kiss him. I was most impressed; he passed the can you handle the broken Mom test.

I got to know Lyle even better on a “bonding” trip from Waco to our lake house, just the two of us. I got to expound and advise ad nauseum; he listened patiently and told me stories about himself, his life and how he grew up. We confessed some of our sins and talked about why we sinned. Our backgrounds were remarkably similar. We talked and listened to the filthy comic stylings of Rodney Carrington, a real experience to have with the father of your girl friend. He was a good guy, I was still a skeptic, this was my baby girl who wanted me to “trust her on this”. Okay.

My big epiphany with Lyle came when he sat with Erin right before and after she had surgery. Lyle was there to hold her hand, Lyle was there to watch her, Lyle was there when I couldn’t be there to make sure Erin was safe. Lyle didn’t run, Lyle didn’t shy away when it got a little hard, Lyle had sand, Lyle had substance.

Given the last five years with Marty I have come to value the importance of substance, the importance of being there beside your partner when it gets bad, when it gets a bit stinky, scary and your heart gets a little tight from anxiety. Finding someone who will sit with you when you are sick, someone who will hold your hand when you are afraid and vulnerable, someone who will hold your hair when you are riding the porcelain bus is really one of the great things in life. I know if I had been the one who had the strokes Marty would have held my hand.

It appears Lyle can do that too. Erin was right all along, I just need to “trust her on this”.

In Marty's Own Words -- Caring for Her Mom

At one time Marty was a fairly prolific writer.  With her humor and insight she would have been a wonderful blogger, I guess in effect she is because she inspires so much of this blog.  Marty wrote this right after her Mother had a cerebral shunt and a cerebral hematoma.  I want to think this happened in 2000 or 2001.  It's amazing how close to the bone she cuts this.

This may ramble, but I need to write it now. I am just back from mom having brain surgery twice in one week, lots of very stressful and very frightening stuff. Briefly, Mom is better, out of ICU in the Neuro observation unit, and will probably go to rehab soon. Still quite a bit of confusion and poor coordination of muscles - particularly right side (bled on left side). Language and purposeful movements are most compromised, but all signs are slowly improving and it has not reached a plateau yet.


I am somewhat encouraged; 2 days ago there was only a blank stare. In a detached sort of way, it has been a fascinating process to be a part of. I have learned more in the last 10 days than you can imagine about neurosurgery, suffering, compassion, me, and life in general. It has been an amazing experience, I can't say I'm glad at all that it happened, but I would not trade for having been a part of it. I am changed in very fundamental ways -- although that sounds rather dramatic and a tad histrionic.


My father has been incredible, two phrases he used repeatedly when I would get discouraged, "I'll play whatever hand I'm dealt" and "I'm designed for whatever the job requires." Although I have never admired their relationship except for the longevity of it (51 years) it was awesome to watch their love play out and impact all of this. His commitment to my Mother and the whole "for better or worse” was operating at full force and often took my breath away.


The big thing for me involved this notion of "the grace of obligation." More and more I think I understand that through meeting obligations that just come with loving others, you receive God's grace. Through all of this I had two voices going on (borrowing from Kay Toombs) - the human voice that fights against it all and screams "no, don't let this happen, this sucks, this is my worst nightmare, this is so bad, I can't bear it." Vs the spiritual voice that says "no matter what, it will be okay, God didn't make this happen, but is with all of us each moment, and will help us bear whatever occurs." This love is made evident through the multitude of caring, compassionate gestures from people you know and from people you don't know. I have been in similar situations before and I don't think you ever experience God's love as powerfully as when you are in some kind of real crisis - it strips you of all the things that normally block the receiving of God's love. In this way the crisis becomes an amazing opportunity to receive grace.


In addition, to be able to offer comfort to someone who is sick and suffering or someone who is mentally hurting and frightened allows you to be a vessel or vehicle for grace. It becomes a privilege to minister to someone who is suffering, and you know what? - I'm good at that. The verse "if you have done it to one of these, you have done it to me." Well this is what the grace of daily obligation means. It really does become an honor to respond to the needs and expectations and hurting in others. The obligation gets transformed into an opportunity that nets you unbelievable grace. To be forced to walk by faith, not sight is really wonderful in a very paradoxical way. I don't mean faith that the problems of this world will all be okay. Maybe they won't, but faith that you really are "designed for whatever the job requires" and that ultimately - everything will transcend this and be okay.