Sometimes It's Getting Too Dark To See

Icy cold dawn's early run, the gym, and coffee. Maybe she'll need me to get her to the bathroom before the gym, after, just out of the shower, a minute after I pull my underwear on. Mornings are bad for her. She can hardly move. I sit her up as best I can, leveraging my body so the legs take the brunt of the lifting. On her feet she'll falter and I'll hug her and massage her lower back and hips where all the weight and pressure are because of her dead and dying muscles. She still forces herself to walk with her red metal four wheeled stand up helper. I brace her arm with my hand. She stutter steps to the edge of the bathroom and parks the walker. I pull up the commode toilet seat that is way too small for a normal person to enthrone upon. She wobble gaits until she's in front and I reach around, pull down her underwear and lower her onto the seat. I hand her toilet paper. Soon I'll be doing the wiping.

And that's the first ten minutes of her morning. I get her back to bed, test her blood sugar as she's also cursed with Type 1 diabetes since she was a little girl. I fetch coffee, her iPad, her breakfast, her phones. Sometimes I give her a shower. All before I leave for my crazy day. Little by little, day by day, there is no improvement. Only destruction. So gradual, but the sign posts are unmistakeable. She's going slowly and torturously.

But her courage and humor profoundly inspire. Her newfound acceptance of me is stunning. We lunched with Aarkey and Crimson in Florida. Those two had never met and Crimson had never met my wife. She and Crimson chatted away about burlesque. My wife liked them both. Sushi in South Florida where I had set up a second life to be single in and here I was, falling in love with my wife all over again. Crimson texted me later that she saw why I fell for my wife - because she's awesome.

And though it's sometimes too dark to see, our renewed connection will see us through to the entrance of that door.