In Sickness and In Health

It's been a very trying emotional time for some dear friends of mine.  Illness, divorce, financial woes.... it's an ugly list, and my heart feels so heavy as I think of these dear ones.  Then today, when I heard of Elizabeth Edwards' passing, as two dear friends put loved ones in the hospital tonight, I was just overcome.

There was no weeping, but anger.  And oddly, gratitude.

One of my friends is sitting by the bedside of her very ill partner.  She is devoted, and caring, and loyal.  Like my dear friend Annie and her partner Anita, this friend is showing the rest of us how to do it right, and that there are those that think they are less worthy than my husband and I to check the "spouse" box on the hospital form? It makes my blood boil.  I don't get it.

I just. don't. get it.

Because clearly, that legally binding piece of paper you sign after the ceremony and the party you pay for for the first ten years of your marriage (if it lasts that long) doesn't guarantee squat.  Sadly.  I mean that.  When a marriage is dissolved, for whatever reason, the ripple effect it has on the family, on the community that supports that family, causes stress and tension and heartache for anyone who cares about the individuals at the center of it.   Still, it's worth the risk when you love someone.  Because it's about hope and the belief in each other, in our promises to be the kind of people we want to be.  Together.  And that some are denied the right to have a crack at it, as faulty an institution as it is, seems petty and archaic.

And as pissed as I can get about it, there is not anything, outside of voting, that I can do about it.

Except this:  make it worth it.  Be kind to my husband.  Be grateful for him - not just for his humor, intelligence, generosity and kindness, but for his faults as well.  I meant it then, and now that we are getting to an age where it really means something, when we are no longer dewy young things, it means even more.  I do not take his love lightly, I do not take his presence in my life for granted.  

I am grateful.

I Got Nothin'

I've been trying to come up with a post for a while, but we're still recovering from the crap. He's been to school this week, and seemed to be getting better, having one brief episode of diarrhea (which is one of my very least favorite words to spell), but still the occasional, brief tummy ache. But last night, he woke up in the middle of the night with explosive diarrhea, the last bout being very bloody. It was another long night for he and I, and Charley stayed home with him and took him to the Doctor (who said "he seems fine") and sent us home with a kit to collect a stool sample for the lab. The funny part is he DOES seem fine, although thinner, and he isn't having diarrhea anymore (well, of course not because it's not the middle of the night), and he's just chipper as all get out. He and Dad built Star Wars Legos today, and he and I had a little nap when I came home from work, and well, life, it just goes on.

But I can't shake the worry and it's just mine. No one else seems upset or worried, and honestly I don't want them to be. I just feel like I need to be isolated and I'll come out when things get better.

I'm frustrated and angry and tired. I'm entering the irrational worry place that comes with his syndrome. I know it's probably fine, and the blood was most likely irritation (although there was enough that it was pretty alarming), but I just wanted the doctor to say, "you know what, let me run some tests" to make sure it's not some nasty bacteria. I WANT it to be just bacterial. I don't want to think about what else it could be, but there it is, and it's all I can think about.

So that's what's in my head. I'm sorry.

On a positive note, I've been getting a lot of great reading done at night. Middlesex, by Geoffrey Eugenides. It's a fantastic read.