[Warning: This post may get sappy]
For several mornings now I've woke before Wil, before my alarm even goes off, rolled over and nestled into the pattern of his body. He's always given away all his heat. He's always felt cold on the inside while his body feels like a furnace to anyone hot natured like me. So even with fewer blood cells in that body, he still gives all his heat away. I have no choice but to brave the warmth these days because I don't want to let a moment slip by. I crowd him, cuddle him, boop his nose, smooch his fuzzy head and face as much as he will allow. Or I steal it. I'm not too proud to admit that! He looks at me like I'm nuts. But that's not new either.
His counts were up this week so the nurse said I had permission to smooch away. Despite a few days of fluctuating temps, he's had a good week. The usual aches and low energy, but nothing dramatic. I told him I was happy for that "new prescription." To which my logical love bug said, "she didn't write any prescription." Oh technicalities Mr. Clark. I'm taking all the smooches I can, whenever I can. The time is always now in my book!
A year ago today he had strength enough in the nursing home to move over and invite me to curl up beside him. He was still mostly unintelligible and immobile, but improving. It had been about 2 months since he allowed me in, mostly because of the toxicity delirium added to the pain. He let me lay next to him for 5 minutes that day before he needed me out to get more comfy. But I've kept that moment as an open invitation ever since.
Hospital beds are the anti-snuggle furniture of torture for me. But I've always made a way in since then. It doesn't take much to learn how to turn off that bed alarm for a few moments! Being at home, then, is easy cuddle access you'd think. But cuddling with someone in pain is both a work of art and love. Each day his body has different aches. Each day stands on it's own to be discovered.
Today is Day +93. In one week we will reach Day +100. It's a mix of emotion. Joy, excitement, restlessness, nervousness. I guess it's why I'm feeling extra clingy.
My heart just feels full of flutters. From the moment I wake up and snuggle up, to my now scruffy lumberjack, to the moment my eyes close at night. Love, anxiety, anticipation...Sometimes I get home at night from work and wake him up just to kiss his face. I'd say I feel bad, only I don't. Emotionally I'm in flight most of the day and when I get home to land, I want to see him and put to rest the stirring of all the bits and pieces that have led up to day +100. It's calming to just to see him. To touch his face. To have confirmation he's there. To satisfy the vibrations of anxious flutter. I think it's set to stay for the next year.
It's just hard to feel safe in the traditional, naive, sense of that word. The more carefree, oblivious type of safety I used to gobble up had to be replaced. By definition, safety means avoidance of danger and loss and injury. It's prevention of hurt.
Safety now is a little more complex and broad, yet moment to moment. It's found in the freedom we have together in the present. It's in waking up and seeing him breathing another day. It's in some deeper trust that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, acting as a mechanism or net, even in the dark moments. It's acceptance of risk and pain, not the absence.
Safety in the flutters. Those irradic waves of wonder. In how my heart feels every day with him. Crazy, unpredictable, rapid, alive.
Lately I keep dreaming about riding roller coasters. And that feeling you get when your car first drops after the initial climb, hands in the air, eyes closed, hair blown, silent scream, stomach in your throat feeling--both terror and exhilaration. I wake up, neither in shock nor fear, but, I guess, fluttered. That's how this leg of the journey feels to me lately. It's how I feel when I'm confronted with others dying around us then waking up feeling the warmth of his life again.
Side note: Sometimes when he's asleep I whisper to him, "please don't die." While I mostly accept the varied realities of the cancer and transplant journey, I still can't imagine living without him. Not too long ago he heard me and replied, "I don't plan on going anywhere."
Feeling life in flight patterns makes me think about the somehow in all things. I guess there is no soar without a lot of flapping. And even though I've felt ackward in my ability to, forgive the pun, "wing it" through new territory, doubting my grace, I lately more accepting of how we've done this journey. We, I, have done it our way. In the middle of flight you have to find your own flutter rhythm based on the winds. No one can know from the ground exactly what you're up against. We had to find a way to listen more to us and less to critique. And then discover that it's more about being carried along then directing.
I think most of us know there are stages of grief. But there are layers to acceptance too. And walking back through the events of last year lately, I'm at more OK letting the breeze move me along a little bit more. Letting the Universe conspire more freely. I still whisper to him at night and grab every kiss I can, but I'm sleeping better.
"The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.” - Hildegard von Bingen
Someday I may just get that feather tattoo on my wrist I've been putting off...I don't want to forget these mysteries that make life so full of worth.
Much love.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful thoughts and beautiful writing! After all you both have been through, I don't think "too sappy" is possible!
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