I live on five acres in the country. It’s on a dirt road in a small town. You couldn’t get more country, I reckon. (smile) My daughter and her family live next door, but they are away for a few days, so the quiet and dark are profound.
We moved here ten years ago when my husband Ed was still walking and driving, in spite of a botched surgery that meant at some point he wouldn’t be. Maybe sheer will kept him upright and mobile, who knows, but I remember him painting our parcels shed and touching up and patching up and repairing things. He bought and installed a string of lights around the porch and set a timer for them to come on at dark and go off around 11. They’re still there doing just that. So I have proof that he did stuff.
Gradually, however, the tasks he could do grew fewer, and eventually he was completely wheelchair bound, only able to drag himself out of it to sit somewhere else or to go to bed. Such a thing would be horrible for anyone, but I’m theorizing that it is possibly even worse for an active person rather than a couch potato, an athlete really, and someone who was a doer, not necessarily a thinker. Physical rather than cerebral. All his life, show him something that needed to be fixed, and he was there.
The more he couldn’t do, the more I took on. Please don’t think he wasn’t grateful. He was, and it was particularly upsetting for him to go from someone who had always put my needs above his to someone whose needs became a priority. To go from the carer to the one taken care of.
Twenty-seven days ago he was sick–vomiting, coughing, weak, and confused. An ambulance took him to the hospital. I’m not sure what they did for him but within a few days they transported him to a nursing/rehab facility where he got worse. The facility took him back to the hospital where they eventually diagnosed him with a rare virus and pneumonia and kept him for nine days before they transported him back to the facility, where he has been now for ten more days. I’ve lived alone for almost a month. I’ve never lived alone before.
Distanced family and dear friends call me, text me, and email me to find out how he is, and cooincidentally how I am. One of those people is his son who has survived life-threatening cancer himself and who came out the other side of that with renewed wisdom and kindness.
In this last twenty-six days, I haven’t had anyone to worry about except myself. It’s been the strangest experience. Tonight I put the chickens in their coop at dusk and then set the sprinklers in the front yard in the semi-dark and stood outside and felt the night come on in this silent place. I looked at the vast sky and felt my solitary insignificance–in a comforting way.
I’m inside now, writing and catching up on all the bad news. Later, I might go sit on the porch and listen to the night and breathe the cool air and enjoy the strange feeling of being able to do whatever I want, even if it’s sitting on my porch late at night, without worrying someone.
Or I might go to bed.
He’s getting a little stronger, slowly, and he wants to come home. And when he does, I will adjust to that reality, too. We talk honestly to one another, without pretense. I can say things to him I wouldn’t say to anyone else. He’s a sweet guy who has had some really bad luck, and it’s not fair. And sometimes it makes him crabby. When that happens I’m not nice either.
He was strong and capable and loved me more than I ever thought anyone could. I believed in him, and I don’t think anyone ever had before. Fifty-seven years ago, we joined our fates to each other, knowing it would not be dull. Along the way, we created two beautiful kids who are extraordinary humans now. We went places and saw things with good friends, and we have great memories.
When he was seventy, a surgeon’s scalpel took a vital, energetic, good man and turned him into a patient. It’s humiliating for him, exhausting for me, and tragic for both of us.
I didn’t know I needed this time alone, but I did. Standing outside all alone in the coolness of the evening, I found my center. I can do anything I need to do, and I will. I have grandchildren I want to see grow up, I have more words to put on paper, I want to be there for my busy, busy daughter who is saving me every day, and I want to be able to constantly remind my EMT son-in-law that he is a hero. I want to spend some time with my globe-trotting much-adored son. And I want to take care of my husband. It’s just that now that I’ve found myself, I don’t want to lose myself again while doing all that. Wish me luck.
Find someone to help this week and be grateful you still can.
Pat Ponders Life 