If you ever want to forget that you’re sick or not doing well, let one of your children get hurt. On the last play, of the last game, of the last day of basketball camp, the boy fractured his leg. It’s some kind of microfracture, so he avoided a cast, but he’s still got 4-6 weeks before he’s back in action. Oh, and did I happen to mention that this happened on the eve of the fall soccer academy season? Given, all of our medical issues, however, everyone in the family seems to be in pretty good spirits.
Speaking of members of the family, I don’t really write in depth about them out of concern for their privacy. Sure, I talk plenty about what sport they’re playing, or if they’re traveling, but I shy away from writing about them. I am not going to break that policy in this post, I just want you to know that as I describe things (tasks), these tasks are not the reason I love my family. The love part goes far past what you do, and delves deeper into personality, and soul, and temperament. So please don’t get all salty and say I only love my son because I ask him to get up and fix a lemonade for me. Now that we’ve got that covered, we can continue.
Let me tell you one little story about how amazing my wife is. This is just an example, the typical Saturday morning over the past few weeks. She gets up before anyone and goes to the gym. By the time the boys are up, she’s home and has already made breakfast for the family. While the boys are eating, she checks her email quickly, then gets a head start on the laundry (which is a herculean task). After breakfast she takes the boys for some form of activity (bike riding, riverwalk, etc). They arrive home shortly before lunch, she takes a shower and cleans up. Sometimes she cooks lunch, sometimes we eat out, but immediately afterward we run errands- groceries, dry cleaning, etc. In the mid afternoon, the boys are turned loose, and she returns her attention to the laundry and starts to prepare dinner. Late afternoon we always do something family related- a board game, a movie, something that allows her to keep an eye on dinner. Then dinnertime comes. Afterwards, it’s upstairs and into the bath/shower for the boys, and cleaning up the dinner mess for mom. Afterwards they come back down and we have some more time- sometimes a movie, sometimes a game, sometimes they get sent to bed early for acting a fool. Bedtime always comes around too quickly for the boys. Once they’re situated, she finishes off the laundry. If there is enough time afterward she’ll treat herself to Netflix or a book, but more often than not she comes to lay down with me and we go to sleep.
On the weekdays when she was home with me after hospitalization, it was the same gig, only worse- same number of tasks, just throw in an hour-long conference call every couple of hours.
Writing those words is a gut-shot. That she does so much and I do so little is criminal. Granted, this is atypical- I’m usually more mobile and able to help out a little bit, we don’t usually have a boy with a leg fracture, and the whole team pitches in to help out. But it really is amazing to watch her operate, especially when you consider that while she is doing all of this she knows her husband is dying of cancer and her son is hurt.
My wife is a truly amazing person, and remember we’re just talking about what she can do, I haven’t even touched on who she is. I could go on at length about all of the things that she does both in task and in spirit to hold our crew together, but it still wouldn’t do it justice. All I can say is that I am one incredibly lucky man. Were it not for her, I can honestly say I would not be here friends.
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