Still Enjoying Life

The events leading up to this day were ominous. Our daughter Charissa was supposed to be spending time with us this week but she called last evening to tell us she was stuck in New York with car trouble. Then Cindy was very restless trying to fall asleep. I even downloaded an app for nature sounds as a sleep aid, to no avail. At some point after midnight I put my arm around her and that seemed to keep her settled down to sleep.

The next morning I detected probable cause for Cindy’s restlessness in a small spot on her side of the bed. It was so small I thought Cindy must have had an accident only just before I got her up. Even with that I was a little surprised because the bathroom trip was successful right before we went to bed.

Once we reached the bathroom I discovered an adult diaper filled abundantly with a brown, viscous substance. I needed to clean Cindy’s legs, pajamas and the bathroom floor …. in addition to washing the sheets. I went through many baby wipes. This was not a good way to start the day.

Add to that the lack of a companion, which was the reason we started our daily walk in a counter-clockwise direction, curving around the end of Emerson Street onto what passes for Norfolk’s Main Street. In order to get Cindy a little exercise we take this walk even when we go out in the pedicab the same day. Yet we usually go clockwise, with the Post Office near our last stop before heading home.

Today the Post Office was our first stop. Car trouble prevented a companion from Waterbury coming today and, in fact, the last two weeks. I need to get more coverage and mailed a new caregiver application in before the PO closed at 1:00 pm.

Our next stop was a bench near the wooden train set in back of the library. A little girl waved and said “hi” to us, which brought a big smile to Cindy’s face. This was the point at which the day started turning around. We sat on the bench and I read the next chapter of a Beverly Cleary book about Henry Huggins to Cindy, while she continued to watch and smile at the little girl.

Our next stop was the library, where we picked up one of the movies we ordered through interlibrary loan, “Secretariat.” If we followed our normal routine in reverse we would have sat on a bench at the Village Green next, read another chapter, then head back home along Maple Avenue. On this day the Village Green benches were removed, for revarnishing I hear, but I had a different agenda regardless.

With a folding chair in tow we went beyond the Village Green and up the driveway that cuts between our chapel and church. We walked beyond the church’s parking lot and onto the Yale Music and Art School campus. At the top of a steep hill, the location where the church school goes sliding in the winter, I unfolded the chair and sat Cindy down.

Our pedicab was out of commission with a blown inner tube, but today was Indian summer in Norfolk. Companion or not, pedicab or not, I was going to get some strenuous exercise in on this warm, colorful day. While Cindy sat at the top of the grassy hill watching me, I did ten hill reps.

At the end of each rep I stopped to kiss Cindy on the forehead, in contradiction to my teasing.

“You’re such a slave driver!” I would say at the end of one rep and kiss her forehead.

“You’re mean!” I would say at the end of the next one and kiss her forehead.

“Why are you making me do this?” And so on for ten reps.

Of course each rep, each tease, drew a big smile from Cindy. Even if my teasing did not do the trick Cindy had plenty to smile about, sitting there with a tremendous view of the fall colors on an unseasonably warm day. This was a day to enjoy, regardless of recent tribulations.

After the hill reps we headed back into town, where we sat in the patio for Wood Creek Bar & Grill. I determined we would eat supper there, which was unusual considering that it was only 2:30 in the afternoon. For our normal supper time I planned for us to eat some of the apple pie Charissa made while she was down here.

I ordered two Naughty Nurse beers to go with our meal, in recognition of Cindy’s former vocation (not that she was naughty). A regular meal with two beers is a larger expense than what our budget really can afford, but this just seemed like the right thing to do on this infrequent, colorful Indian summer day. I commented to Cindy that this was a great day and she responded with: “Yep!”

There are many ways to say “yes.” When Cindy says “yes” as intended she is giving formal acknowledgment of something. She has not said “yes” in a long, long time. More often she says “yeah” in a way that drifts towards the end of the pronunciation, revealing her mind to be drifting as well. Ah, but when she says “yep,” all is right with the world.

For some reason our unusual meal, in both timing and cost, hearkened to my mind a scene at a presentation of slides and music I gave. The presentation was at the University of Maryland Public School of Health and an academic in the crowd  asked me a question, seeking financial advice for how she could do long distance hikes as well. She shared with me some of her own retirement planning ideas, then must have been sorely disappointed when my response for being able to hike long distances was: “Don’t make much money.”

The more money you make, the more expensive your lifestyle is likely to be. Foregoing your earning potential under those conditions for a long distance hike becomes very difficult. We were able to go on long distance hikes, for what amounted to be Cindy’s retirement years, because we were not losing much by doing so. Despite three undergraduate degrees, three graduate degrees and two professional certifications between the two of us, our combined earned income always was modest.

As we sat there on the patio I thought about how true that very same answer would be for becoming a full time caregiver. How are we able to live on fixed Social Security disability income alone? We are not losing much by doing so, since we never earned that much nor have an expensive lifestyle. Yes, things are tight, tighter perhaps than warrants a full meal with two beers at the local establishment, but we’ll get by now and I’ll find a way to get by later …. and still enjoy life.

So despite a busted pedicab, lack of companions, restless night and, quite literally, a sh**** morning, as Cindy and I sat on the patio sipping our Naughty Nurses and basking in the day together, there was only one answer to whether this was worth the sacrifices.

“Yep!”