Sometimes recovery is body checked by small changes and little unexpected turns of events. Like yesterday. Once a month the cleaning ladies come to go like whirlwinds through our house and make it look like neat people live here. Many times they come at 8:30, and Beatrix and both scramble either for cover, or to get out, because there is no safe pace in the building. It was like that when my mother cleaned: “run, she’s coming…you’ll be next!”)
Well. Since I’ve been ill, we’ve asked them to come at 10:30, because for a variety of medical reasons, it’s really hard to be up, dressed, alive and ready to go by 8:30. So the other day I phoned and asked if 10:30 would work for them this month. “Hmmm…I’ll have to check my calendar…I’ll get back to you.”
But no one called! For the first time ever, I was left high and dry, uncertain, in my addled state, about what would happen. They might come at 8:30 and I would be caught up in the whirlwind and swept away! So, grumbling, I got up and was ready for the 8:30 invasion. It didn’t come; of course, it didn’t come. These two wise and kind women knew that an old man in the house would be a pain, and a bother. And they love my spouse. So they came just before ten.
But my morning was a mess. I broke the doctor’s rule! I got excited about it, I let it worry me, became, to use my mother’s word, I was “kerfuffled!” By the time they came, my morning started badly and it was their fault! “Oh, really?” I hear you say. “You could have trusted in their love for your spouse and in them, and relaxed,” Yes, I could have. But I am so far from perfection, or even from recovery, that I did not. Instead I was annoyed. When I saw their truck arrived out front I felt small relief, for I actually had time to lay down and rest, but I was also upset, and so I wouldn’t have to talk to them, I let myself out the back door before they came in so I wouldn’t have to see them. Wasn’t that mature? A sign of how well and quickly I am becoming my old self? No…it was a sign that I am still an idiot, small things still flap me, and I have a long way to go.
I went only so far as Tim Horton’s, grumpy all the way, where a group of Brother cheered me up, made fun of me, and gave me the ride I needed to do my errands. I came home partly healed, but no more perfect than I was before.
Knowing what is the “good” thing to do to help healing along, and having the sense to actually do it, eludes me a lot of the time. And puts me in my place, so my boring blog of yesterday looks like the babbling of a man who keeps his eyes closed so he won’t have to see what is the proper thing to do. I should have, could have, trusted those ladies to come later because we have come to love them, and they to love us. But oh, no: I needed a phone call.
So here I am at 2:30 AM, making sure you…and I…find out that I have a long way to go, that it may not be fatal, but that t will never be perfect, and that I’ll always be the man with the congenital brain injury. Got to put that on my resume; it tells a vital truth about me. I hope those of you who have come to love me will smile, and agree.
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