Sick Of It

So, I just took a shower. I wrapped my whittled foot in a trash sack and duct taped it closed. Because of my parents, I have guard rails in my bathroom. So, I climbed into the shower and climbed out without assistance. I got out of the shower, dried myself, and sat on my bed and wept. Yeah, I'm not a man who cries. I cried because I was physically weak. I didn't cry tears of sorrow; I cried tears of exhaustion. I’ve always thought tears were weak. Well, I was wrong. So, first lesson.

I felt too exhausted to dress so I sprawled across my bed and grabbed my phone. I played Words With Friends with my friend. And then I looked at my apps. On this exact date - 3 years ago before I got sick - I bicycled over 35 miles. Today I break into a thick gooey sweat just walking to a chair. I lost my temper and deleted the bicycle app.

After I controlled myself, I thought about illness. We're all going to get ill. Unless your death is violent or accidental - you're going to get sick. So, in the smallest of ways, (and I emphasize smallest) I see the benefit, no wait, lesson of my illness. It's taught me to be a better man to the elderly. I'm more compassionate. I'm more empathetic. 

Illness is a great math lesson. Get sick and add up your accomplishments and tally your failures and subtract the useless worries that no longer matter a flea fuck. 

I've learned the courage of the ill. It takes stones of steel to endure each day.

I feel sicker this week than I ever have in my life. My cardiologist is titrating my meds - and by Christ (not in vain. I mean it) I hope he gets it right soon. I don't know how the ill get out of bed each day. I don't even understand the physical achievement of it. 

I watch my sister Carol tend for us and I see the heroic achievement of those who are caregivers.

Today was the first time I couldn't take my Mother to her doctor's appt. It broke my heart. I thought God and I had this agreement. Obviously, He didn't.

But maybe our agreement is He teaches me; I learn and become a better man. Am I better man? Yeah, no I don't think so. So maybe I'm the one breaking our agreement. But today I feel useless. Without purpose.

I’m sick of being sick; I’m sick of me.

His Last Remains

He lined the items on the table beside him: pads, gauze, bromine, Q-Tips. He laid the white towel - bleachable and sterile - beside him as his shroud. He inhaled and blew the anticipation from his quaking lungs. Slowly he unwrapped the ace bandage. He untwined the gauze strip. He untucked the sterile separators that padded his two tiny toes at its end. Finally he pulled the pads off the scars and saw the carcass. Tears trembled down his cheeks and mucus bathed his upper lip. He couldn’t silence his sorrow. Sadness mingled with despair and he stacattoed shallow throaty wails. He removed his hands from his face and pedestaled himself with his palms by his sides. When his eyes were as dry as the skin surrounding his incision, he sat upright and sterilized his hands with alcohol.  He dabbed bromide in each crevice, wrapped his foot tight, tossed the bloodied bandages into the trash, stood erect, and walked out of the room.

The Finite of The Infinite

You know what I love? I love when I meet someone and all of a sudden he/she matters to me. He's/she's in my life. Within it. I love that. 

A secret I’ve learned at 55: they can leave just as quickly. 

See I believe love is often finite. 

I love. 
Someone makes a choice I find intolerable.
I unlove. 

But in those moments of synchronicity, it’s still love.  It’s still communion.