Survive

Any number of people wouldn’t and don’t know why I love Shannon. He’s a fair amount older than me, has health problems and has been known to go crazy from time to time. I have to drive him to Temple every time he has to go to the VA hospital for routine stuff. It’s a 130 mile round trip, too far for him to do safely on his on.

All I have to say to people who question our relationship is “what planet are you from? Don't they make people who love each other where you came from?”

Those folks are focusing on the little things and not the big picture. Like the life we’ve lived together for somewhere between 8 and 9 years and continue to (The time frame's a little fuzzy as to when we actually committed) .

The big picture is coming home every day to someone who really wants to see me, and that I want to see, as well. Having common goals. Being there when the other needs picking up off the metaphorical floor yet again.

That metaphorical floor is not so much a solid surface as an abyss. A metaphorical one, but one that sometimes doesn’t seem to have a bottom.

He’s lost weight in some places and gained some in others. So have I.

We’ve both gotten older and changed shapes over the years, but one thing hasn’t changed: we take care of each other. He is my guard-rail on the edge of the abyss.

I’m his, too. And if he goes over it into never-land, I’ll be there to pull him out.

We’ve been through too much, me and the old man, to give up now. And it hasn’t been a leisurely stroll through an enchanted garden. At times, it has been nothing short of hell.

Dealing with serious mental illness takes a resolve and understanding I didn’t know I had before I had to deal with it.

It’s made me a stronger and better person, though.

I’m more patient than I ever have been and have enough perspective now to understand what’s important and what’s not. Watching someone writhe in mental anguish, tied to a hospital bed in ICU, not knowing who he is but is living inside a nightmare has a way of creating perspective.

Like Tammy Wynette, I stand by my man. Good, bad and worse. The “good” is great, the “bad” can be very nasty and the “worse” can be downright ugly. But without that commitment, nothing else really has any meaning. At least as far as defining a relationship is concerned.

I’m an aging, stubborn old coot. I take the bad with the good. That’s the only tenable position I think anyone can or should take.

And when things go bad, my motherly genes kick in. If that means I've have to go a couple of days without sleep because I have to, I will. If it means sitting in a hospital waiting room for hours, I will.

Any time I need reinforcements, I put Gloria Gaynor's “I Will Survive” on the play list.

What God can’t cure, disco can.