My Better Half

“Re-think and restart if needed. Adjust, but resist the urge to quit.”–JSM

 

The first week of Nancy’s healing, was a time of madness. I can’t count how many times she wanted to close up shop, and quit on me.

I wouldn’t allow it.

When she begged me with tears streaming down her cheeks to put a pillow over her face, while she was sleeping, and end the pain… I knew she was in a bad place, to say the least. It was heartbreaking.

All I could do was watch, wait, hold her hand, kiss her forehead, be close by, abide by a strictly designed routine, and catch incremental naps while she slept. Every five minutes reminding her, and myself, “everything will be OK. We got this. Everything will be alright.”

Always planting seeds, and trying to keep her spirit positive.

Try to keep her alive… and not just living.

Of course, I never fully slept. I had one eye and both ears partially open, and the moment she rustled, I was moving across the room.

Life was like that for a time. Two months of watching, waiting, helping her with minor stretches, and brief walks around the house. Helping her heal. Listening to her breathe, while sitting silently in my chair thumbing through a book.

I changed her bandages, administered her medications, and brought her to the appointments when she was cleared to be in a car again. I wiped her tears, applied the healing ointments, bathed her, fed her…

And I’d do it all over again if forced into that situation a second time.

My relationship with Nancy is a metaphysical unification that transcends time and space. It breaks all the rules and laws of nature and smashes the stereotypical boundaries into smithereens. She and I are cosmically connected at our cores, and destined to share a life together. I’d take a thousand bullets for her, if it meant she could keep smiling and sharing her energy with the world. Her smile can light up a football stadium. Our bond is carved in stone, unbreakable, unwavering, and if reincarnation exists, or Heaven takes our souls when we depart from here, she and I will meet again on the next go-around. I am convinced of this with every fiber of my being, and nothing can convince me otherwise.

Nancy and I are manifest destiny, written in the stars.

Aside from all that new-age mushy stuff, she’s just a bad ass, with the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met. Selfless beyond all comprehension.

I had to keep reminding myself during her struggle this too will pass, this too will pass. You can do this…

Bring her back. That’s your job. Nothing else matters.

Coming into the third month, was when the cabin fever kicked into high gear. Unfortunately, the third month was just the tip of the iceberg.

She was mobile at this point and able to climb the stairs to the second floor, unattended, if she moved slow, and at this point along the journey… I needed an escape, but was terrified to think about myself in any capacity. My job was kind enough to allow me to work from home during Nancy’s recovery, but I was confined (by my own choice) within what was supposed to be my place of contentment. My home was slowly becoming a claustrophobic cage. Every day the walls squeezed in another inch.

Sixty plus days of isolation.

All I did was work my job, attend to the chores, and help my wife with her therapy and getting back to “normal”. We had friends and family living close by bringing us groceries and necessities. Most times the goods and supplies were deposited outside the porch door and I was texted after they left the driveway.

There was no way I was going to a grocery store or a large public place and exposing myself to potential threats. Bringing home anything from the outside world was opening a door to disaster.

And no one entered the home.

We were on lock-down. And unbeknownst to us at that time, we would have close to three more months of quarantine to endure.

And I was on the cusp of losing my marbles.

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