Day 4

Everyone tells me to give myself time.

Let me guide you through this life of mine the last several years…

Everything revolved around him.

Every minute of every day.

When I got away from the house it was to get things done I needed to do.

The only pleasure I got out of it was taking G to lunch those days where we could talk and I could be anything other than his caregiver.

Of course some of those days I’d get home to find him on the floor unable to get back up into his chair or bed.

It was no fun for him to be that way. He’d cuss at me for not being home…gee, I did have to buy groceries once in a while.

I gave back as well as I got. Some days all we did was yell at each other or say nothing.

The last 4 years or more I’ve slept on the couch because I couldn’t hear him fall if I was in my bed.

We quit sleeping in the same room many years ago because his MS made his legs jump so bad I’d wake up bruised and exhausted from him kicking me all night. He saw I was not getting any sleep and moved to the next room.

That worked fine until he began to fall all the time.

I began to sleep on the couch so I could hear him if he fell…I turned into a light sleeper. Someone who slept soundly maybe an hour of each night. I had nightmares too, nightmares that somehow predicted how he’d go. Every time, the nightmare was of him falling down those damned steps.

The horror of it all came into focus Sunday the 17th when he fell down the stairs and scared me to death. This was his second time falling down the stairs, but this was the worst fall.

I called 911 and I’ve never seen the ambulance get here so fast before. They knew by my voice it was bad.

So here I am. I will always love him even though there were times lately that I didn’t like him much. I’m sure he felt the same way about me.

But here’s what you need to understand, I’ve had time. I’ve had years to think about what I’d do when he died. We knew he’d go first. We talked about what I would do. We talked about what he wanted me to do. He knew.

He’s taking his journey.

Now I begin again with his blessings.