The Caregiver’s Tales: A Blog
The Caregiver's Tales (A Blog)
I stayed home for most of Independence Day. Read. Worked in the yard. Talked to the cats. I think you can call that independence. When the sun set and the time came, I walked into town for the fireworks. I arrived just in time to hear the end of our national anthem and see the evening sky begin to light up with a colorful display of pops and bangs. I expected more people, but there may have been other vantage points.
Independence Day. Alleluia. The day we threw off the yoke of British tyranny, and a bunch of guys prepared to be hung if it didn’t work out. Luckily, for them it did. We celebrate by popping off fireworks, so it will be noisy this evening. I might walk into town to see what the local folks have planned for the main event. I can see it from my yard, but it’s better close up.
There’s a plant growing in the middle of my driveway, with tiny, tiny white flowers, each touched with a dab of yellow, bunched around a lavender seed. You can see them on your hands and knees quite easily. I have no idea what prompted me to look closer, but I did and now I can’t unsee it. It’s attractive, and I believe I’ll try to grow more of it. It’s called Texas Frogfruit. It will fit right in with the Straggler Daisies, also known as Horseherb, that occupy most of my yard.
It’s always the same. There is the injury. There is the acknowledgement. There is the recovery. Tuesday night my calf was screaming. Injured in my sudden retreat from the unexpected appearance of the red wasps, it wanted to bear no weight. The next morning it was tender, barely walkable, and I visited the clinic to ensure the damage was routine. This morning, what felt catastrophic on Tuesday, feels more or less normal. There is soreness, but I am ambulatory.
I believe my body has decided enough is enough. On the day I finish a course of meds for hip and shoulder injuries, I pull a calf muscle getting away from a wasp nest I accidentally disturb. The hip had me limping for the pain it fed into my lower back. Now I’m off to limp for the lower leg. I’d say it doesn’t seem fair, but I’m fairly certain fairness has little to do with it. It’s just my mind making promises my body can’t keep.
Chasing fame. It’s an odd passion. But it occurs to me that everything I’ve done in my life has been in service to that notion. From the first newspapers I sold as a child to Marines at 29 Palms through every job I’ve ever held since, I’ve either sold or helped to sell something. That’s what companies do. They want to be famous. Known. And they want people to give them money. Anyone working for them, in any capacity, helps to fill that mission.
As always, there’s more to the story. Yesterday’s dip into grief showed me how close it lies to the surface of other people’s lives. I lost a loved one who was loved by others, in ways big and small. Their loss is no less grievous than mine. A heartache is a heartache no matter how it comes to be. It is easy to forget, as I go about the business of healing, that my suffering might be carried by others. Of course, it also means it is not my burden to carry alone, and that helps.
Yesterday, I was sitting on a patio listening to music surrounded by people, most of whom I knew and most of whom I’d only come to know in the last twenty years or so. There was not a single person in the audience that I had known prior to 2004, yet many of them are well on the way to becoming close, personal friends. And I had the odd thought that if a potted plant were sentient this must be how it feels to find yourself in a new garden in the fresh soil of new friendships.
But last night, as I lay in bed and the wine wore off, I revised the analogy because life is more like a river and I’m a stone tumbling along driven by chance and circumstance. There was the luck of my birth, my father’s move back to Texas, the discovery of my future wife in downtown Houston, and the chance party where I met the musician I saw yesterday. In every case I paused long enough to gather the moss of friendships on my downstream side before being pushed on down the channel.
Although, at this point, I think I’m in calm enough water that I doubt I’ll get much further down the stream. I’m probably too heavy and the river’s lost interest. But that’s okay. Lots of people and pieces of my past lives are still with me, and this place and time is invigorating. These fourscore years have brought me much happiness, and if my past experience is any indicator the future portends well, and I am anxious to see it come.