How I Learned to Read

It seemed like magic. Somehow, the squiggles and lines on pages made up words, and words made up stories. The little Golden Books my grandmother bought me from the supermarket were filled with such lines and squiggles. Sometimes, I could convince my grandmother or my mom to read to me from The Little Poky Puppy or the Gingerbread Man. Mostly, though, I sat with my treasured books on my own, trying to figure out the code that would make the stories come to life. I matched the pictures with words I’d heard and tried to guess. Was this word here, the one with the line at the top, tree? And the one with the letter that looped down low, was that word yellow? I made a game of it. When I was in the market with my mother, I would point to the signs I saw and say words out loud: Sale! Fish! Bread! And a lot of times I would be right and someone standing near would say to my mother, “Your daughter’s very bright.” My mother would nod in the distracted ways of young moms and say, “Yes, she is.”

But she thought I was only matching pictures to words. She didn’t know that every ounce of my brain was given over to working out the coded system adults seemed to know so well.

Now my parents were not really avid readers. Dad read the newspaper every night and Mom read movie magazines on the weekends or at the beach. They would read to me if I asked, but it wasn’t a nightly routine. We had books in our home, big, thick ones that rested on the bookcase my father had built by the side of the fireplace. But no one ever took one of the books down and opened them up. I had, of course, my little collection of Golden Books. Almost every week, my grandmother added a new one.

But, young as I was, I knew that they weren’t REAL books, not the kind with the thick sides and the shiny covers that came off.

Then, the Christmas just before I turned four, Santa Claus brought me a real book. It was shiny, not made of cheap cardboard. It had a cover that slipped off and brightly colored drawings and—most wondrous of all!—words! Not just one or two words on each page, like some of my little Golden Books, but lines and lines of words. I held the book tightly to me even as my brother and I unwrapped the other gifts under the tree. And when my mother went into the kitchen to make breakfast and my brother played with his new Erector set, I asked my father to read the magical book to me.

“I will go into the zoo,” my father read, “I want to see it. Yes, I do.” I clung to the words, following along with my finger as he read each one off. And I was hooked. The creature that might have been a dog or a bear wanted to belong to the zoo! After my father finished reading it and before my mother called us for breakfast, I turned the words over in my head, pointing out each one to myself. After breakfast dishes were done, I asked my mother to read it to me. She obliged. Then I asked my brother, who gave a half-hearted attempt at the words. Then I asked my father again. Finally, my mother said, “Play with something else, Linda.”

But I wasn’t playing. I was learning to read.

As the afternoon wore on and dark fell, we bundled up and drove in Dad’s gray Plymouth to my grandmother’s house. I carried my wondrous book with the creature who might have been a dog but was probably a bear. There, while my mother and grandmother got Christmas dinner ready, I showed my grandfather my new book. He read it to me. Again. And again. Until at last it was time to eat.

I could hardly sit still to eat my turkey. I knew I was on the very verge of something wonderful, something life-changing, something so important that I as yet had no words for it. All through the main course and the apple pie, I longed to get back to my book.

But the adults did not understand. There were more presents under my grandparents’ tree, more toys and clothes and items to delight. There were no more books.

Later on, as the sounds of the Lawrence Welk Christmas show filled the living room and the Lennon sisters sang “Jingle Bell Rock,” I crawled up onto  my grandfather’s lap. “I will read to you,” I said.

“Alright then,” he said and scooped me up close.

And I opened the book, the amazing book with the creature that might have been a dog or a bear or something entirely new, and I read the story to him. “Yes, this is where I want to be! The circus is the place for me!”

My grandfather was astounded. He called to my mother. “Betty, this child has learned to read.” My mother, dishtowel in hand and weary from Christmas, said, “Oh, Daddy, we’ve been reading that book to her all day. She’s just memorized the words.”

My grandfather shook his head. “No, Betty. She can read it.” And he made me read it again for my mother.

Backwards, from last page to first.

And I didn’t miss a word.

My parents stared at me for a moment. My mother stroked my head. “Sometimes,” she said, “this one just astounds me.”

I wasn’t sure what the word meant. But I knew I would find out. I knew that, somehow, a door had opened for me on that Christmas Day, beckoning me into a world of delight and wonder.

I had learned to read.

9th Hour

8/27/14

The Ninth Hour

We arrived at the hospital later than we had planned, closer to 9:00 than to 8:30. We’d missed the Callowhill Exit off I-95 North and ended up all the way on Lehigh, working our way through Kensington and finally to Broad Street.

“We’ll make it on time,” my daughter assured me as I sneaked a peek at my watch.

“More time to pray,” I said. But, truthfully, I was concerned. I wanted to see my husband before they took him for the abalation, wanted to hold his hand and kiss him one more time. Ron’s condition had deteriorated since Thursday, when his blood-pressure bottomed out during his scheduled ketamine treatment. Since then, his heart had been in AFib, and the blood thinners were not working. I wanted to be optimistic—I made a career of it—but I couldn’t help but wonder if this was finally the end of the story.

Friends had assured me for the last two days that I had done all I could for my husband, being a model wife and care-giver to my ill spouse. “You have nothing to feel guilty about,” they all said. I needed to hear it. I’d only lately come to the realization myself. Negative influences had, for years, blamed me for Ron’s various maladies and even though I knew the accusations were not true, some of the barbs stuck. In the last few months, though, I had finally crawled out from under the burden of guilt that I had carried for 14 years.

“Ron has been ill for a long time,” friends told me. “It’s been hard.  It might be time to let go.”

“Might” and “will be” are two different statements. As much as I’d longed over the years to come to a  page marked, “The End”, I had always seen it as an end to Ron’s illness, not his life.

“Dad’ll be okay,” my daughter said as she maneuvered us towards Hahnemann Hospital. They were the same words she had said the night of her father’s accident. “He won’t leave us without a fight.” I nodded my head in agreement, remembering how Ron, ill and in pain, had nonetheless danced with his daughter on her wedding day in June. It had been hard, I knew. Perhaps, I forced myself to admit, he was tired of fighting.

We got to the hospital shortly before 9AM and found a space in the Feinstein lot, a blessing to two gals who hated city parking. It was a short walk to the hospital entrance, each of us carrying a tote bag of yarn projects. We’d logged enough hours in waiting rooms to know the drill of unexpected complications.

“Everyone we know is praying,” Bonnie reminded me as we ascended to the 20^th floor. We counted off four churches and one synagogue where people were gathered this morning, more than 200 persons. Bonnie and I had made phone calls to prayer chains at 8PM last night, when information from Hahnemann informed us of Ron’s deteriorating condition and the need for the heart procedure.

I’d been to 2056 before, but hospitals are a rabbit warren of mazes; it took us a few minutes to find Ron’s room. He was sleeping when we entered, hooked to various wires and monitors. It was an all-too familiar sight.

“He looks better,” I said as I touched his cheek. “His color has improved.” Bonnie took her father’s hand. Ron’s eyes opened.

“Hi, “  I said. “We made it. Even though Bonnie got us lost.”

“Not lost,” said my daughter. “Delayed. But I made up for it by speeding.”

Just then, two white-coated figures entered the room. “Ah, you made it on time,” said Dr. Fletcher, a man I had met on Friday. “We’re getting him ready for the procedure now.” He bent over the telemetry machine to read the tape. “Hmmm” he said. He looked up and smiled.

“What?” I asked.

“Well,” said Dr. Fletcher,” it appears that Mr. Cobourn’s heart has converted to normal rhythm. The blood thinners must have worked.”

Bonnie and I grinned at each other. “We had everyone we know praying,” we said. “His heart had a lot of help.”

Dr. Fletcher smiled. “Perhaps the blood thinners AND prayer did the trick. Well, I’ll go call the OR and cancel.”  He and his white-coated companion left.

“I feel better,” said Ron.

“A lot of prayer,” I said. The three of us chatted for a few minutes. Ron was anxious for some breakfast now that there would be no surgery.

Dr. Fletcher poked his head back into the room. “I checked the tape again,” he said. “When did you ladies say all the prayer happened?”

“Around 8 last evening,” we said.

Dr. Fletcher grinned. “His heart rhythm began to convert around 9PM.”

The power of prayer is never to be underestimated. “God still has a plan for you,” I told my husband. Bonnie began to send out happy texts to our prayer warriors.

“Well, my plan,” he said, “is to eat.”

We still have issues to solve. The blood thinner lowers Ron’s blood pressure, but his heart might need the help. And while the ketamine treatments seem to help the pain issues, they affect his blood pressure, too.

But these are issues for another day.

Because, thanks to God, there will be another day.

Waiting for Gilligan: Part 2

8/10/14

There was an oft-repeated joke about the Professor on Gilligan’s Island and it went like this: If he could make a washing machine from bamboo, a Geiger counter from spare parts, and jet fuel from plants, why couldn’t he fix the boat and get the castaways off the island? In similar fashion, the Well Spouse who has been rudely thrust into the new role will ask the same question. Why can’t it be fixed? Almost every week, it looked as if the seven hapless victims of the Minnow’s wreck would finally be rescued. Alas and alack, by the time the credits rolled, all hope had been dashed on the same rocks that wrecked the Minnow and the castaways found themselves sitting around the same campfire, lamenting their fate.

It took us 26 surgeries to realize that, for Ron, more invasive procedures would not help the situation. In fact, his abdominal muscles were so weakened by so many repeated surgeries and his immune system so compromised by repeated infections, that he developed an enlarged heart, suffered mini attacks, and eventually needed to have a pace-maker/ defibrillator installed. I wonder what parts from the Island the Professor would have used for that?

One of the many roles of the Well Spouse is to continue to be optimistic, even when it appears all hope is lost. I was exhausted by surgery number 20, willing to throw in the towel and admit defeat. The mountain of medical bills had grown proportionally with each procedure. But Ron accused me, more than once, of “not wanting him to get well” (yeah, because I liked all the burdens I was carrying so much), so we ploughed ahead. After every surgeon we consulted—and the list was immensely long—vetoed anymore surgery, we began to look for alternative means of relief.

While Ron continued to hope for a miracle, I came to realize a few years into this insane journey that not only would rescue not come, a miracle cure was also a remote possibility.  Here is where the cheer-leader role of the Well Spouse gets a little murky. We want to believe in a cure, but our feet are mired in clay. We have also come to suspect—as our Ill Spouse has not—that we are too far into the journey to ever go back. Ron might want to turn back the clock fourteen years, but the kids have grown and gone on with their own lives. And, to a large extent, so have I.

Because there is no rescue for us. We need to learn to rescue ourselves. We remake ourselves each and every day. We find our own places of refuge—a few moments with a cup of tea on the back porch, a fifteen minute trip to the bookstore, an evening out to dinner with a friend. I made a very conscious decision at Year Two of this journey as the Well Spouse: I could not let this control my life anymore than it had to. I could not lose myself in what was only one aspect of me. I was sorry as could be that the illnesses needed to control my husband, but I refused to let it destroy me or my kids.

I’ve made good on my promise. Despite the hospital trips and the medical bills and all the things I need to do as the Well Spouse, I think of myself foremost as writer and teacher, not care giver.  I recognize that I have gained much these last fourteen years. Even if Ron were to be cured tomorrow, there would be no going back.

Gilligan’s Island lasted for three years. We watched each week as yet another potential rescue was thwarted , usually by Gilligan. The end of the third season left the Castaways on the uncharted island because, at the time, a fourth season had been planned. In 1978, the seven passengers of the S.S. Minnow appeared again in Rescue from Gilligan’s Island. After 15 years, they returned to their own lives, only to find that things on the mainland had changed. Eventually, a planned Christmas reunion aboard the Minnow II led to another shipwreck, with the cast once again back on the island. There was a sense of relief; this was what they knew. This had become home.

My life as a Well Spouse is not easy; sometimes it is darn hard. But it is what I know. The roles I need to fulfill, for Ron and for my students, are familiar to me. I no longer look for rescue. I no longer need to be rescued.

I figured out how to rescue myself.