The Flow
My body has decided enough is enough. My left gluteous medius, and I’ll leave it to you to look it up, has decided to spasm. So, sitting, standing, and walking are well, how shall we say it, difficult. I have a masseuse, but she’s out of the country. So, it’s just me, some meds, ice, heat, and whatever endurance I can muster. I’ll get through it. I’ve done it before, but it’s nothing you would call a pleasure cruise.
Anyway, I did get a little work done yesterday. I replaced some glides on one of our bedside nightstands. They’re the little pieces of plastic that attach to the back of a drawer to keep it moving smoothly on a metal bar that sits beneath it. It was fairly easy work. A lot of screws and patience. On the nightstand that used to stand besides my wife’s side of the bed, I noticed she’d cut a hole in the backing. She didn’t like to see wires. So, they disappeared into the back and came out that hole. I don’t mind them, but in this case, I thought, why not, so I bundled them up, ran them behind the backing and out the hole she’d cut. Seemed a fitting tribute.
And that, my friends, is one tip for how to make a marriage last fifty years. Go with the flow. Sometimes it goes your way; sometimes it goes hers. And I found I learned a lot as I went with it, the flow. Tidiness, for instance. I’m not fully sold on never seeing wires, but I do think they can be tidy and bundled and made to look nice. So, I try to do it. I guess you could say that’s how she improved the quality of my life. And, as I type this, the stack of papers to my right is calling out my name, saying, hey, shouldn’t we be somewhere else? And I know they should be, and later this morning I’ll do it, because even though she’s no longer here, I still know which way the river runs.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale