As it Goes

These are not the twilight years………yet but we are getting older. I find myself embracing my age and looking forward to what my “older” years will bring. I am not overjoyed at the thought of slowing down, or losing some of my energy or memory for that matter. What I am looking forward to is continuing to thank God that I can glance over and there is my husband.

This is a fact sometimes the young, middle age, older, and elderly someone can get sick and it can often be catastrophic. The other part of the partnership has to overcome and do hard things never thought possible. You are no longer squeamish or think something is gross it all takes on a new meaning when it is someone you love. So I am going to embrace my age and my situation in this wonderful thing called life.

Not everything in life is great, but every life has the potential to be great. So I choose faith and I choose to love my life no matter what happens. I choose to make my husband have the best life possible and to be thankful for a chance to take care of him, laugh with him and yes keep shaving that face.

I no longer get tired and wonder if I can measure 1 more blood sugar, fill up the pill box again and give a shot of insulin. This is an intricate part of the world I walk in and love. If I can make him smile and think he is king of the world and the best husband a person could ever have then that is a great life and it is not a lie. We are still partners, still making decisions together, still folding clothes and cleaning toilets together.

I am embracing the difference a stroke makes, the tears, the crooked smile, the limp, the tenderness, the childlike quality, finding things in odd places, all the things to celebrate.

The truth is this path we walk can be as far reaching as we want to make it stroke or no stroke and I know we certainly have had some high highs and some really low lows in 29 years. Funny thing is the stroke was not one of them, it was more of an opportunity to be thankful, to know God is God and to continue to glance over and see my husband. To place my hand on his chest in bed and feel it rise and fall assuring me he is still breathing. I still have many more days of filling the pill container, helping with the socks and drying off his back when he forgets.

This is a good life.