Seashells and Shaving Cream

But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. Luke 2:19

I  decide on coral and teal. If I cannot go to my happy place at the beach this year, I tell myself, I will bring the beach to me, beachy colors that will calm my soul every time I take a shower. Happily, I order a shower curtain and a window shade online. While I wait for the packages to arrive, I gather other items: new peach and white flowers for the washing pitcher that belonged to my grandmother, the little jar of seashells we bought in Bermuda, a pink candle I find in the downstairs cabinet. Amazon delivers on Thursday and on Friday, armed with cleaning supplies and a trash bag, I head up to the hall bathroom to refresh my soul with happy things.

I am delighted with the colors, glad that the light gray walls allow me to change the decor without major expense. I have even indulged in new curtain hooks in the shapes of seashells and starfish. I delve into the top drawer of the cabinet under the window. Time to clear out the clutter! I toss empty shampoo bottles, old toothbrushes, and a dried up jar of Vaseline with happy abandon. I reach into the very back of the cabinet and pull out a can.

And I stop and sink to the teal colored rug on the floor of the bathroom, holding a can of Barbisol shaving cream in my hand, and cry.

This was Ron's. The only kind he ever used, the kind that was put into his Christmas stocking by one of the kids every year and given on each Father's Day along with Old Spice aftershave. The can still emits the faint, clean scent of my late husband. Quickly, the memories come pouring into my mind: Ron on our honeymoon, carefully shaving while I watched, fascinated by the contours on my new husband's face. Ron on our trip to Jamaica, needing to buy a different brand of shaving cream at the gift shop--at an outrageous price--because he forgot to pack it. I probably said a few unkind words. Ron sitting in his wheelchair, no longer able to hold the razor, giving me instructions while I lathered his face and prayed I would not cut him. Ron in his hospital bed, the nursing aide using an electric razor to trim his bushy gray beard.

Memories, psychology tells us,  allow us to relive special moments in our lives, both good and bad (Psychology Today). And God designed memories so we could relive not only the grand moments of our lives, but the small and  intimate details that make up the years, the relationships. A marriage.

There on the bathroom rug, the shaving cream in my hand, I recall Luke 2:19, "But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart." I want to believe that these small moments--Jesus in his infancy and childhood, ordinary moments to anyone but a mother--are what gave her the courage she needed to bide him farewell.

It has been a year and a little since I bide Ron farewell. Not forever, but for now. I am learning to negotiate the path one step at a time, making a new life for myself and my autistic son, allowing myself to cry over a can of shaving cream and store up a few more treasures in my heart.

It was a long battle for us,  an uphill battle of many years and many illnesses. We learned in those years, Ron and I, to treasure the small moments of peace: a shared meal from a hospital tray, a day without surgery, a cup of tea after work drunk at his bedside. God was faithful on our upward climb. The road was often dark and treacherous, the path unknown.

The path led Ron to Heaven.

I walk alone now, on a new path of widowhood. I have not "moved on" from Ron, but I have "moved forward," twisting those many years of care taking--what was often back-breaking and soul-crushing--into my life. I hang coral colored curtains and seashell curtain rings. I cry over small things.

God is still faithful.

The tears are a healing balm. Soon I am able to get up from the rug in the middle of the bathroom floor and toss the empty can into the trash bag. I hang my new curtains, place my little memories around the room. I touch the seashell shaped curtain hooks one by one, each one a memory of a happy day. 

My husband is still here, in each action I take, each thought I think. Like the coral and the teal colors I have chosen, he calms my soul.

Heart Beat

Shattered...

Like you've never been before
The life you knew
In a thousand pieces on the floor

"Your husband's heart is very damaged," said Dr. Hoffman. She stood next to our chairs in the trauma waiting room, still wearing a blue surgical gown. "His aorta was crushed by the steering wheel. And he's sustained a lot of other damage in his chest and pelvis. But, he's survived the surgery. There may be other complications later on, but for now he is stable."

My daughter and I were numb after eight hours spent in molded plastic chairs, eight hours of twisting our hands and praying. During the evening and early morning hours, friends and church members had stopped by to pray and wait with us. Now, at 2AM, it was just Bonnie and me and our minister.

"You can see him for a moment," said Dr. Hoffman. "Then you all need to go get some sleep. Don't set the alarm for work or school. Just sleep. We'll call you if anything happens."

Ron lay on the stretcher in the recovery room, still and gray, wires and tubes connected everywhere to his body. A screen above showed his heart beat in glowing green. I touched his right shoulder, one of the few places on his body without an electrode. "Stay with me," I whispered to him. "Tell your heart to keep beating."

And words fall short in times like these
When this world drives you to your knees
You think you're never gonna get back
To the you that used to be

Tell your heart to beat again

Close your eyes and breathe it in

"Is he still alive?" asked the voice on the other end of the phone. "I just got the  message you left. Mom, tell me, is Dad still alive?"

Bonnie, Allen, and I had huddled together in my bed for a few hours, trying to sleep away some of the fears we were feeling. One of us would drift off for a few moments, but inevitably we would wake up and grab for each other. Thoughts ran through my head: What now? How would we get through this? Could I be strong enough for Ron, for our children?

Tears streamed down my face as I responded to my son, away at college. "Yes," I said. "Dad's still alive. When we left him at a couple hours ago, his heart was still beating."

Let the shadows fall away

Step into the light of grace

Yesterday's a closing door
You don't live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you've been
And tell your heart to beat again.

"The surgery on his pancreas was successful," said Dr. Harbison. "He'll be on a feeding tube for a while, and gradually we'll reintroduce solid foods. But his heart has become enlarged. It's not working at full capacity. He'll spend some time in the telemetry unit, but I think he is going to need a pace-maker. We'll watch him for a few days until he's stronger." 

I made notes on the pad I kept in my purse as he talked. Terms once foreign to me--pancreas, spleen, telemetry- were now part of my everyday vocabulary. "I'm assuming you will give him a diet to follow when he's released, things that are easy to digest and that will keep his blood sugar level. When can I see him?"

"In about half an hour," he said. "We've had some trouble bringing him out of the anesthesia."

"It always happens," I said.

He paused for a moment and checked Ron's chart. "I see this is his--fourth surgery in the last year? This must be hard on you."

"It is," I agreed. "But we're a strong family. The kids and I figure it out as we go along." I smiled as I put the notebook back in my purse. "As long as his heart keeps beating, we'll keep fighting."

Beginning

Just let that word wash over you

It's alright now
Love's healing hands have pulled you through
So get back up, take step one
Leave the darkness, feel the sun
'Cause your story's far from over
And your journey's just begun

"Your pulse is very weak. Mr. Cobourn, I think you're going into A-fib. Are you with me? Stay with me!" shouted the nurse.

I grabbed Ron's hand. "Come on, honey. Keep breathing." I turned to the nurse who was busily raising the bars

on the stretcher Ron laid on. "Shall we call 911?" I asked her. "Do we need the paddles? Is his pace maker working?"

"It will be quicker to run him across the street to Temple," she said. "I'll push. Go hold the elevator!" 

I picked up Ron's things and ran down the hallway of the medical building on Broad Street, determined to stop traffic if I had to in order to get Ron into the Emergency Room across the street. "I'll call them that we're on our way!" I said as I furiously pushed the button for the elevator. The nurse arrived, breathless with her exertion, and the doors slid open. I leaned over my groggy husband and whispered in his ear, "Tell your heart to keep beating. Tell it not to stop."

Tell your heart to beat again

Close your eyes and breathe it in

Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of grace

"It's his heart" said the voice on my cell phone. "As you know, it's terribly scarred from so many surgeries and infections. And it's only working at 25% capacity. Dr. Araidne needs to do an ablation but since you have medical power of attorney..."

"I know," I said as I opened up my desk drawer and picked up my purse. My elementary  students were  out on the playground and the Reading lesson was on the board. 

"How soon can you be here?"

I checked the clock on the wall. " Maybe 30 minutes," I said. "I'm just up on Academy Road. I can get to Hahnemann pretty quickly."

"Okay. We'll let the surgeon know."

I grabbed my purse and locked the door. I would run by the office and tell the secretary I was leaving for the hospital; my reading students would have to stay in their classroom. Quickly, I strode over to the parking lot and got into my car. "Tell your heart to keep beating," I whispered to my husband. "Just a little while longer."

Let every heartbreak
And every scar
Be a picture that reminds you
Who has carried you this far

"We did everything we could," said the EMT. "There is nothing else we can do. His heart just..stopped. Between one beat and the next." He laid a hand on my arm. "I wish we could have done more."

I took a deep breath. "He's been through a lot. Too many hospitalizations. Too many surgeries. Nineteen years of too much for one man to deal with." I let the tears fall from my face. "He stayed as long as he could. He kept his heart beating for us."

The EMT bent to put the instruments back into his bag. "The medical examiner will be along later. But I think cause of death is obvious." He straightened up. "You took good care of him, Mrs. Cobourn. Never doubt that." He sighed. "Frankly, he shouldn't have lived this long. He did because he loved you."

'Cause love sees farther than you ever could
In this moment heaven's working
Everything for your good

"Dad's okay now," I said to my three children, huddled together on the deck out back while the EMT's finished up. "He's not in pain anymore. I promised him...I promised him we would all be okay. I promised him we would  move on with our lives. I promised him we would always remember him."

Tell your heart to beat again

Close your eyes and breathe it in

Let the shadows fall away

"Good-bye," I whispered as I leaned over the casket. "It will take some time, I know. But I want you to know I will be okay. Your love will always be part of me. My heart will beat for you."

Say goodbye to where you've been

And tell your heart to beat again

TRADING PLACES

¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

Philippians 4:12 (NIV)

A couple of years after Ron’s car accident, I lamented to my friend, Debbie, “I want a different life!” Debbie is a no-nonsense sort of gal and even though she loves me, she did not hesitate in her response: “You need to get over that real quick. You have the life you have.”

It certainly wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I was already exhausted from caring for the demands of an ill spouse and working three jobs to support us. It seemed as if all my dreams—earning a doctorate, teaching college, writing a book—were being dashed on the rocks of Ron’s needs.

I wanted a way out.

Other spousal caregivers feel the same. Caregiverstress.com is full of comments from other men and women who deal daily with the overwhelming challenges of caring for an ill spouse. We’re all handed the same spiel as we bundle our damaged partners into our cars after a long hospital stay, told that care giving is a noble pursuit and we will be blessed by our endeavors. Even our closest friends offer the same platitudes: your reward is in Heaven, God will never give you more than you can handle.

What no one tells you is that care giving is back-breaking, gut-wrenching, mentally exhausting, and emotionally draining labor. The first few days home from hospital will find neighbors, friends, and relatives arriving with casseroles and cards. But eventually, you are left alone with your ill spouse to make an adjustment to a life that no amount of pre-marital counseling could have prepared you for.

Where does one find contentment when the very thought of emptying one more bedpan and mopping up one more mess makes you want to scream?

“This isn’t”, I told my friend Debbie, “the life I planned for.”

And I’m not alone. The Apostle Paul, writing from his prison cell, lived a life far different from the one he’d planned. In Great Lion of God, Taylor Caldwell’s meticulous research into the life of Saul of Tarsus paints the picture of a privileged and intellectual Pharisee, a Roman citizen raised as a scholar of Hebrew scriptures.

But Paul died a martyr’s death.

Not really what he’d planned on.

Yet Paul, quite literally owning not one thing, not even his freedom, was able to find contentment in his prison cell, writing to the Philippians, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

Learning to be content is not a natural process. Our modern world would convince us that contentment is found in the latest tech gadgets or the newest cars, but contentment cannot be bought. It is simply learning that God is, no matter what, in control.

What was the secret Paul had learned? How can those of us who find ourselves caught in a situation we never trained for find contentment with our lives?

1.     Keep your focus on the Lord. Remember when Jesus called Peter to step out of the boat and onto the water? (Matthew 14:28-30) Peter only started sinking when he took his eyes off Jesus.

2.     Do what God has called you to do. Abraham could have lived a life of luxury in Haran with all his flocks and household, but when God called him to move on (Genesis 12:1-3), Abraham did so.

3.     Thank God daily for His sufficiency. Learn to live with what God has provided, be it a lot or a little. Corrie ten Boom, who rescued many Jewish people during the Holocaust, was taught by her father that “God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. When we need something, we will just ask God to sell a cow.” (Psalm 50:10)

4.     Love the Lord with all your heart (Matthew 22:37). Jesus teaches this is the way to true contentment.

It’s been 18 years since the accident that changed our lives and my conversation with my friend. Caring for my husband is still a daily challenge. Some days are harder than others and I need to work at finding contentment when the cost of Ron’s medications has gone up again and I feel like I cannot possibly run up the steps one more time.

But if I move the focus from myself, if I rest my weary body in the sufficient strength of God, if I take a few moments on the back deck with a second cup of tea, I feel contentment creep over me.

It’s not the life I planned. It is the life I am called to. And within this life, I have earned a doctorate, taught college, and written books.

God is sufficient.

EYE TO EYE

Dear Friend,

We've been together for almost twenty years, but on June 20, 2017, we will say good-bye forever. I will miss you more than I can possibly express; you have--quite literally--been a part of me. The years between our meeting and our parting have been chaotic. Your constant presence has not only helped me to survive, but to thrive. In addition, the very bestowal of you has allowed me to care for my family and raise my children, to provide for my disabled husband, and to impart the gift of knowledge to many students and teachers. I am beyond grateful for you.

Our close relationship began on February 14, 1998--a most appropriate date--when a surgeon at Wills' Eye Hospital in Philadelphia removed your damaged predecessor from my right eye. A corneal dystrophy called keratoconus had destroyed it and all efforts to save it had come to naught. You, my dear right cornea, were affixed to a narrow circle of tissue with 120 tiny sutures. I came home from the hospital with a bandage over you, a throbbing headache, and a hope that you might provide me with the gift of sight.

And you did. It took a while for vision of any sort to return; I spent two months with slowly increasing visual acuity.

It took even longer for me to feel that you were truly mine, not a foreigner to my body. For half a year, every blink dragged down over sutures that broke painfully or were removed at the hospital. Even after the last suture was gone, the vague feeling remained that you did not really belong.
Gradually, the early morning notion that there was "something in my eye" dissipated. You became mine.

For a while, you could tolerate the rigid gas permeable lens and my vision was a pretty miraculous 20/60. It was enough to teach high school English and earn a graduate degree in Reading. And when my husband, Ron, was in a car accident that nearly took his life, you stayed firmly affixed to my eye as we took on two and three jobs to support the family.

By the time we had been together ten years--the usual life of a donor cornea--we were firmly implanted into a doctoral program and you were showing signs of wear. You would no longer wear the RGP with any degree of comfort so we switched back to our thick glasses and moved on. My life was too hectic to deal with the routine of contact lenses anyway, what with caring for Ron and teaching  at three colleges.

We made it, you and I. I saw--if through a haze--all three offspring graduate college. I received my doctorate in 2011. I knitted my way through Ron's various surgeries and saw well enough to help my daughter make her wedding gown.

Around 2015, you began to protest. The ghost images from you were now full-blown doubles and I had trouble with stairs and certain colors. I could only read on my Kindle set to a large print font. My good friend Dr. Neil Schwartz declared you to be "clinically blind."

I lived with it for a while, depending heavily on my still good left eye. But in March of 2016, I woke up one morning to a heavy fog that would not lift. I went to Neil, who referred me to a cornea specialist. She sent me to be fitted for a hybrid lens, but that ophthalmologist said you were too far gone. I saw another specialist, who referred me to a retina specialist, who referred me to a neuro-ophthalmologist, who referred me back to Wills'.

Where we first met. We have come full  circle, dear friend.

And as I prepare for the surgery and the recovery time I will need once you are removed from my eye and another donor cornea takes your place, I want to thank you for all you have allowed me to do. Someone somewhere gave me a very precious gift when they donated their corneas to be used for people like me. In saying "thanks" to you, I am really saying it to that nameless person who not only gave me the gift of sight, but the gift of life.

On June 20, I begin the journey again with a new cornea, a new chance to see and to live and to make meaning from my life. It is a charge I will never take for granted.

So thanks, dear friend. I will never forget you. I pray that I have been, and will continue to be, worthy of such a rare and wonderful gift.

With great gratitude,

Linda

P.S. Dear readers, if you  have not already done so, please consider giving others such as myself the gift of sight by donating your corneas after death. The Eye Bank Association of American can help you understand the process.
http://restoresight.org/cornea-donation/understanding-cornea-donation/

Sympathetic Joy

I’d see her around town occasionally, this woman who had once attended church with me. At the diner or the market, we’d bump into each other and exchange a few pleasant words. We’d ask about the kids—we had sons of a similar age—and talk about our church ministries. Somewhere in these brief exchanges over a decade of years, I’d learned that her husband suffered from bipolar disorder. I murmured sympathetic words; I knew what that was like. We’d part ways after a few moments, each of us going back to a challenging life. I seldom thought about her between our sporadic conversations.

I saw her again on Saturday, this woman of my acquaintance, sorting for buried treasure at the church rummage sale. We spoke, of course, making the same cursory comments we’d been making for years. Nice to see you. Beautiful day. How are your kids?

And then she said the unexpected, totally out of keeping with the little I knew about her: “I’m getting a divorce.”

I got it. Standing there with a covered casserole dish in my hand, balancing the cookie sheets I was holding for my daughter as she tried on a pair of jeans, I got it. Years of care-giving, arguments with a spouse that often lacked reason, raising a family on a shoe-string budget, doling out money to medical professionals who could offer no real hope all took their tolls.

I fixed my face into what I hoped was an appropriate expression of compassion and touched her hand. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I know what it’s like.”

She knew my words were not empty. She nodded. “Of course you would.” We said a few more words, promised to pray for one another, and went back to our days.

As she turned down another aisle, I tried to find the words to describe what I was feeling. Empathy? Concern? Nothing seemed to fit. As my daughter returned with her 50 cent jeans and we continued on our rare day out, I shelved the thought for later on.

I took my thought out again the next day and looked it over. I turned to my thesaurus and the internet to try and pin down the words that would say it. I finally settled on a Buddhist philosophy: sympathetic joy.

Part of me was glad for this dear woman, glad that she would now be free of the demands of care-giving, relieved of senseless arguments and messy clean-ups and the burdens that come with being the Well Spouse. I pictured her in a small, sunny apartment somewhere, time healing the wounds caused by the illness of a spouse. I admired her courage, because I knew what it must have taken for her to reach this point. Dreams are not easily relinquished.

But along with the joy was the sympathy. Divorce meant the loss of the future she had planned as a bride, holiday dinners with an empty chair, grandchildren visiting on alternate weekends. I remembered the last thing she had said to me before we again parted ways: “It just got too hard.”

I know hard. I know exactly what hard tastes and smells and sounds and feels like. Being the Well Spouse is a solitary endeavor. We do what we do for the most part alone. Often our families do not understand or see it all. And sometimes the immediate family of the Ill Spouse would rather pretend the situation did not exist, casting the burden of an ill adult child onto the one unwittingly who said “I do.” It is easy to go blithely about when you do not hear the night demons screaming.

I prayed for her today, my fellow Well Spouse. I pray she has peace in her decision. I pray her adult children support her. I pray her church supports her.

And as I prayed, I was forced to again ask myself the hard question: Why do I stay? Why do I sacrifice so much for what seems to be a never-ending cycle, with one ailment after another plaguing my husband? Why do I live always waiting for the other shoe to drop? I am often exhausted by the burdens placed on my shoulders. There is no longer light at the end of an incredibly long tunnel.

Do I lack the courage to leave? I do not think so. I have seen myself become, these last fifteen years, a woman of daunting courage. Do I fear reprisal? My own children would understand. There is no one else whose opinion would matter to me. Do I think God would punish me? I believe that God, having created me, knows the limits of my body and my soul. I think He would be saddened, but I do not believe in a vengeful God.

So, then, why?

It’s a complex question. After 37 years, so much of me is tied up with my husband that it is sometimes hard to separate. My Well Spouse acquaintance commented that she no longer knew which things belonged originally to her and which to her husband.  It is more than just possessions that are shared. A lifetime is not easily dissected. Routines established are not quickly disbanded. Hope dies hard.

These are all reasons for staying. But the real reason is simple: I stay because I can. Despite my considerable vision problems, I am well and healthy.  I can still find joy in teaching and in writing. I can still laugh with girlfriends and have the kids over for supper and watch a movie with Ron. Our life has been bent, but not destroyed. If I have had to change my plans of a little retirement house at the beach where I can write all day, so be it. It is the price of the Well Spouse. I can still spin my dreams, however fragile they sometimes seem.

But I can recognize my own fragility as well. I can no longer work 60 hours a week and retain a bounce in my step and a twinkle in my eye. I cannot function solely on gallons of tea and the “someday I will write my novel” mantra. I’ve put that dream off for too long. I may need someday, let’s just face it, to come to the same decision as the woman at the rummage sale. The thought is always with me, a dark cloud over the head of a comic strip character. It may never rain, but the dark cloud still dangles above.

I recall the words of a former pastor, spoken at the very beginning of my journey as the Well Spouse. He took my hands in his and said, “Linda, I know that you will do everything in your power to help Ron. But if, at some point in time, years from now, you find that you can no longer do this, I will understand. I will not rebuke you.”

I can only pray that, should that overhead dark cloud descend, I will not rebuke myself.