78. A Perfectly Painful Weekend — Part 2
Tim has been put through the paces since my diagnosis. We are still operating as partners, but we are on two very different paths in life. Sometimes, it makes it difficult to find the sweet spot, the place we can both occupy with little effort. Ironically, the most comfortable place for Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful in recent weeks was on His and Hers Rest and Rehabilitation Recliners.
The sneeze heard round the world brought my 6’2” man to his knees. Two rounds of muscle relaxants smoothed the rough edges of pain and decreased the moaning and groaning coming from the mission recliner, but there was enough ‘Tim’ noise this past Saturday to easily announce his predicament.
My moaning and groaning, on the other hand, hasn’t been heard in weeks. Nurse M and Dr. Wonderful have definitely found the sweet spot on my pain management. I am having very short bouts of breakthrough pain here and there and there, but nothing worth mentioning, really. I am having definite issues with spine weakening, and bouts of nausea are frequent, and my appetite is iffy, but overall, I feel really, really good.
This past weekend I actually felt better than Mr. Wonderful.
Go figure!
I hated seeing the man I love in pain, but I enjoyed the megadose of his company. My being lashed to leather for this length of time has meant that Tim has had to pick up slack on things I used to do — actually it’s Tim and Jessica who divvy the stuff Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful divvied up years ago. So while he’d love to hang out with me all the time, he’s got things to do. Still, we spend every Saturday and Sunday evening together and of course, our coffee time is sacred, so don’t come knocking.
One thing Tim insists upon doing is cooking me a special little something-something from time to time. Since Hannah takes care of the vegan meals she and her father seem to enjoy, and Jessica does her own food purchasing and preparing, Tim pushes into making something from my recipes, just for me. It’s sort of a tricky thing, what with the nausea and decreased appetite and all, but he buys the provisions for certain meals, and follows my shouted step-by-step instructions. He has made some awesome dinners that I have nibbled down.
That mini-ramble wasn’t planned, but it adds context to Tim’s world of late. Being off his feet for two back to back days forced him to slow down and it gave us oodles of time to relax into being who we’ve been as a couple — a chit-chatty, laugh our asses off husband and wife team since June 20, 1986. Fair warning is in order. There is absolutely nothing significant about my end of life journey in this blog. Why? Because our weekend talky-talk was nothing more than trivial banter and a stroll or two down memory lane and, believe you me, that is far more interesting.
We spent a lot of time talking about childhood vacations and then listed the places we’ve been to as adults. We were a bit surprised at how few places Tim got to tick off his list. He went to Montreal and Quebec, by choice, while on a high school trip; I went to Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick as a kidnapped offspring. We’ve both been to New England states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New England adjacent states: New York and New Jersey. Tim traveled the furthest from Massachusetts given that he lived in Texas for five years. He visited some major cities while in The Lone Star State, but once he settled in The Woodlands, he stayed there. My travels beyond New England were mostly part of my ‘roadie’ days following music groups. I know I did a lot of travel to Pennsylvania, and a trip to Ohio, and Virginia, and probably hit a few more states, but some of that travel time included inebriants, so who knows for sure. I went to Wisconsin, and Missouri, both work-related travel, and headed to Georgia, Florida, and Washington D.C. for shits and giggles.
Our little exercise in Who Went Where? proved what we already knew — our ‘Far Away from Massachusetts’ time was during our younger lives. When given time off from responsibilities as adults, the only place we wanted to go was to Wells Beach. All we ever needed for a perfect day was sand, surf, and sun — and each other.
Tim went off on a tangent and spent a lot of time telling me how much he’ll miss me, and how much substance I brought to his life.
‘Substance?’ Must have been the muscle relaxants.
One particular braindump surprised me, “... you gave me an understanding of how and why it’s important to push into things that are unjust or unfair to women and young girls. You made me examine issues and not just do a checkmark next to the candidate representing a political party. And then you did the same for our daughters, teaching them the importance of being informed and educated and being part of the political process. I like how one of our girls is very left-leaning and the other leans left on social issues and is fiscally moderate.”
“I like that they vote. Can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would choose not to vote. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, voting is the most important right we have. Pisses me off that people can’t vote or choose not to.” I felt an uptick in my heart rate, so I veered us away from politics — which I’d never done before — not once in my life.
We were quiet for a few then I changed subjects. I could tell he wasn’t long for the world and I’d lose him to a nap soon, so I presented a little random something for discussion. “Someone on FB asked this question: If you could bring back a restaurant no longer in service, which one would it be? I immediately submitted my answer, Northworks.”
Tim said the name in unison which caused us to laugh. I eyeballed my man, “Is that your answer, or did you say that just because you knew I’d say that?”
“I don’t know? I definitely knew you’d say that, but let me think.”
And. This. Is. How. My. Husband. Thinks.
He ran a list of every restaurant he patroned and is now closed.
Before Andria and a whole bunch of you guys start in on my making up words, like patroned, you are sooooo wasting your time. I’m just gonna do it. I figure it’s a bone life can toss me. So, if patron is a (n): A customer, especially a regular one of a store, restaurant, or theater, then I think it is perfectly reasonable to verb the patron and then past tense him or her. I tried to get away with this crap in all of my books and was successful here and there and here and there. But, mostly, The Warden put her fashionably-sandled, perfectly-pedicured-ped down and won a few battles.
See, I can stay in the correct lanes — perfectly-pedicured-ped, is most definitely a mouthful, but it is a perfectly-passable-passage. Still, it probs brought a glisten to Mrs. Flores. This, my friends, is why authors need editors. I had an editor for my books, but I’m flying free as a bird now — so, if you read my blogs, you’re gonna get weirdness from time to time.
And as Hadley always says, “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset!” Sage advice from a seven-year-old.
Getting back to Tim’s list of restaurants he misses: Northworks, Webster House, Christos, Friendly’s (on every street corner), Millbrook Diner, Atrium, El Morocco, Acapulco, Biagio’s Grille, Tweeds Pub, Ho Toy, Ken Chins, and Chopsticks. For added pleasure, he rambled a list of bars and entertainment venues he misses from way back when he was frequenting them: Steeple Bumsteads, The Red Barn, The Loft, Curlies, The Pub, and Maxwell Silverman’s.
Is it any wonder I lost him to a nap after all that mental work?
Nope.
When he woke an hour or so later, I’d just finished a little cry.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Something.”
“Something stupid.”
“Usually is,” he laughed. He groaned in pain. Served him right.
“Wouldn’t tell you now, if my life depended on it.”
He raised a hairy eyebrow.
“Right. Okay. I got up to use the BR and I saw that you left the cellar door open—” he cut me off.
“You were crying because I left the door open? For real?”
“If you’d let me finish a sentence, Tim. Thirty-five effing years! Let me finish my sentence before you get all up in my grill.”
Groan. Maybe two.
“I saw the shoe rack with all of my shoes, and sandals, and slippers on it.” Like a fool I teared up and then had a little pity-party. “You should throw them away. Put the black flats with my funeral outfit and throw the rest away.” I started bawling.
He tried to get up — I suppose to comfort me. It pissed me off that his grunts of pain drowned out my sobs, my anguished sobs. “Just stay where you are, please. And when you’re feeling better, please toss out my footwear.”
183 was really quiet for a good long time.
And then we got back on track.
“So, now that we are where we are,” I began, “I want complete honesty on something.”
He started to laugh. “The answer is NO, a hundred times NO.”
“How is it you know what I’m going to say?”
“Your lead in.”
“What lead in? I gave nothing!”
“And yet, I know.”
“Annoying.”
He laughed. He moaned in pain. Served him right.
“So you didn't try to kill me?”
“Nope.”
“But you thought about it. You had to have thought about it.”
“Nope.” He smiled big — really big!
I’m not buying it. Not for a second!
Boston Harbor, 1991
I’m rather sure I told you that I had my gallbladder removed when I was six months pregnant with Jessica, and that a couple months later an armed would-be-robber broke into my home when Hannah and I were there alone, and that Jessica was born with some sort of breathing issue which required her to be on a fetal-heart monitor because she was high risk for SIDS. Right? If I didn’t tell you, then there you have it — the lead in to this part of the blog.
It's the end of summer of 1991. Hannah was 2 ½ and Jessica was seven(ish) months old. Tim and I had been sharing 24/7 fetal-heart monitor monitoring duties for all of Jessie’s days. I was on the day shift from 7 AM until whatever time my exhausted husband dragged his ass home from work. We’d acknowledge one another’s presence with a kiss hello and goodnight, I’d head to our bedroom, and he’d drop his ass onto the twin bed we had in the nursery. Though the man deserved an uninterrupted full-night of slumber, he didn’t ever get that. He’d get up whenever the monitor alerted him that there was a problem with Jessica.
Some nights, zero alerts. Most nights, several alerts.
One night, upon his return home, Tim stopped my progression toward my beckoning bed. “Here.” He handed me an envelope, the kind of envelope that most often contains a formal invitation. This envelope contained just that.
“Boston Harbor Cruise, October 12, 1991. Hawaiian Theme. Ship sets sail at 4 PM and returns to dock at 10 PM.”
“We have to go. It’s for a select group of invitees.”
I laughed and made a move toward my slumber chamber.
He took hold of my arm, “No, really, we have to go. I need to make an appearance.”
“Okay, so make one.”
“And you need to be there.”
“Why?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but we were told that our R.S.V.P.s were already submitted for us and for our spouses.”
“No problem. I’m filing for divorce. See you in the morning.”
Normally, Tim and I would have jumped at a chance like this. An all expenses paid cruise on Boston Harbor with its spectacular skyline as backdrop, and ‘adult only romantic time’ — please, please, please count us in! That was before JOB — Jessica O’Brien. Having a child hooked up to electrodes or whatever they’re actually called, and who stopped breathing whenever she wanted to was challenging — too challenging for babysitters? Probably not since we had babysitters on Tim’s side of the family who came with nursing degrees. The challenge was us — me and him. We felt more comfortable being on the frontlines with Jessica, so we didn’t leave her with anyone.
Come that October 12th, our comfort level mattered not one bit.
On October 12th, our asses were going to be sailing Boston Harbor.
Tim and I were on a high of excitement as we took to the Pike and headed toward the wharf. At 4 PM, the gangplank was set in place and a gate opened shipside. Excited party goers inched across the somewhat rickety walkway and boarded the boat, Tim and I included. There were probably 50 couples that embarked. Most everyone stayed above board for the first few hours looking out over sparkling waters and sipping drinks with pineapples and cherries skewered through by paper umbrellas. When the warmth of the day waned with the setting sun, and the swift push through choppy waters brought a lasting chill, it sent most everyone below deck to where food and music awaited us.
Hawaiian shirted men and gauzy dressed women talked, danced, did a little Karaoke, and had a great time. I reconnected with people I’d enjoyed Christmas parties and summer cookouts with over the years, and promised myself that Tim and I would find a way to do this sort of thing more often.
When the cruise ship turned and started back to land, the lights inside the party room dimmed, the music turned soft, and conversations became more intimate. I know ours did. We finished a slow dance and he grabbed my hand, “Come on.”
We headed aboveboard, spent a few minutes talking with a former NFL Super Bowl Ring Wearing behemoth who worked with Tim. Being the football fanatic I am, and the W.O.M.A.N that I am, I shamefully swooned over the M.A.N. I marveled at his ring, but I mostly wondered how he found a Hawaiian shirt to fit over his mammoth biceps, triceps, sextaceps, octaceps, or whatever the hell size ceps he had. I know two of those words do not exist — I don’t care. The man was huge. I think you get that point.
After I stopped fawning over the former Redskins and Seahawks player, Tim and I strolled hand in hand, stopping occasionally for a gaze at the moon and a kiss or two. Mr. Wonderful became tired of kissing and wanted a bit more something-something, so he grabbed my hand and led us to a quiet spot on the boat. It was sort of a little walkway and it was abandoned. He leaned me back against the side rail and went for a touch or two.
And. Then. This. Happened.
The side rail I was leaning against was not a side rail. It was the gate. The one we walked through hours before. The one that ‘somehow’ unlatched and opened behind me.
The gate I was falling out of.
In seconds, my arms started flailing, and rushing water started splashing at my legs and ass. Tim grabbed hold of the front of my dress with both hands and struggled to keep me from the drink. The momentum from my arms and the movement of the boat worked against his success, but with one final pull, he hoisted me back to safety. He was pushed hard against the wall by my propelled body, and I sort of landed in a heap at his feet.
People arrived from all directions. The gate was pulled shut and locked in place, and witnesses to my near death experience explained what they saw to the powers that be.
The love of my life righted me, pulled me close, and whispered in my ear, “Do you always have to cause a scene?”
Apparently so. Jackass.
We laughed our asses off on the way home from Boston. We’ve laughed our asses off every time one of us has told this story.