Left-handed

The night before my wife broke her hip, we shared an adventure that was typical of us. She was left-handed. I wasn’t. She was really equally-handed, but biologically left-handed.

She had excruciating pain in her foot that night. It may have been, and probably was, some kind of bite. She couldn’t walk on that foot. She had to go to the bathroom so I scurried around and found a potty chair I had made. I got her all lined up.

There was never a time in our togetherness that was coordinated. We would try to fold a sheet. Uh-Oh. We folded in opposite directions. She would turn her end left and I would turn mine right. Do you know how many folds there are in one sheet?

We would try to go through a door and bang into each other.

We would pick up a box or crate or something. Inevitably, she would go one way and I would go the other. We would start over. We would go in the exact reverse. Sometimes, I would just pick it up and go.

When we would sit down to eat, she always had to sit on my left, so I wouldn’t be pummeled by that left appendix flailing around.

She played golf right-handed, something about improved leverage. She wasn't very big, but she out-drove most men she played with, which was not appreciated by the men. She putted left-handed, though. Dead eye.

At our faux wedding, we found ourselves standing on the wrong side of each other. It was the same thing as at the table, she had to be on my left. We made a big correction. It was a no-big-deal ceremony. Some witnesses we didn’t even know came with the ceremony. They started rolling their eyes, like couldn't they have figured things out by now?

She may have been left-handed, but whatever I wanted, she made certain I got. During her illness, she was always cooperative. She maintained her social envelopment of any, and all, with whom she came in contact.

So in trying to get her on the makeshift commode, of course, it turned into an ordeal.

It’s pretty simple. Stand up, pivot, sit. Uh-Oh. She wanted to pull. I wanted to push. The commode danced between us. She really needed to go. We started laughing. I finally grabbed her body and plunked her onto the commode. That was no easy feat. She wasn’t a lightweight. 

By that time we both had collapsed with laughter. The room was filled with it.

I have no idea how she got back into bed. I just know we got the job done. We were still a team.

I think about the many years we were a team. I think about how many times we got the job done, working in opposite directions, many times to our mutual advantage.

I started to pick up a big box of stuff today. No one was there to grab the other side and twist us around like a top.

It brings on grief. It hits my body like it always does. I don’t understand grief. 

How can I be happy, involved and productive, and then, WHAM, become decimated? 

I never know what may set it off.

When her death day anniversary comes up, I stilI don’t know how to prepare for it. If I drank, I suppose I would want to get drunk. Maybe if I go and wail at the side of the road, some Mother’s Day Good Samaritan might come and rescue me. I guess I will depend upon my little dog to share it with me.

I don’t know how that little dog knows I am hurting, but she comes and gets in my lap. She licks my face. I guess that’s what dogs do. 

She’s my team now. I don't know what we will get done. I don’t really know if she is right- or left-pawed. I really think she is both, as my wife was, but I do expect when we go out the door for our walks, the dog will turn left and I will turn right.

Contemplation: Do you believe opposites can accomplish miracles?

Let me know how you are doing. I care.

Sincerely,

Lynn Brooke

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