Saturday, January 01, 2011

Yes, Dear


Today is the first day of a new year, 2011. Were it not for my wife saving my life last spring, I wouldn’t be here to write this little piece today. We’ve been married for decades…each of us just once, and just to each other.

She’s no longer the person I married. She’s much better. Oh, yes I get frustrated with her. Sometimes it’s because she interrupts one of my too-lengthy stories or changes the subject in mid-sentence. I’m talking weighty topics, she’s thinking about what we’re having for dinner.

Sometimes she comes in while I’m writing and starts to babble like a parakeet drowsing on its perch. She’s working things out in her mind. I neither understand it nor make the effort. Once she’s got it worked out, we will converse.

All I recall is a sudden and extreme nausea…she recalls much more. While I lay slumped on the floor, she saw my body doing the ugly things a dying person does. As she calls 911, she keeps me from slipping away.

In ICU a few hours later I feel fine and ready to go home. Eight days later, three of them in ICU, I go home…I’m unsteady. She’s there, steady as a rock. She will fall apart later. I no longer get too frustrated with her.  

Happy New Year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Happy, happy New Year, Gus! Thanks for sharing that with us!