Name the year you were born without using numbers.
"Rock and Roll" changed the world!
Whatever song was number one defines the rest of your life.
"Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis was exploding on the charts the day Mom delivered me at Telfair Hospital.
"When I need you" by Leo Sayer was number one when Sarah was born.
I tell her but I'm not certain it registers because she's doing a couple of hundred things at the same time.
I've got lots of time on my hands recovering from yet another cancer related surgery to ponder such things endlessly scrolling Facebook or Twitter.
My wife works her ass off, snapping from one persona in real time to another depending on the context; big smiles playing with our 4 year old daughter in the floor, over exuberant enthusiasm talking to one of 40 people with development disabilities, acting as first responder to 3 teenage daughter's with a knack for needing her just as she's ticking something else from her ever growing list of things to do or making sure I have lighters so I can effectively take my pain medication.
Sarah has no time at all.
I have tons.
I've leaned it doesn't go well if I try to share my overabundance of time with her.
It makes things worse so I try to stay out of the way, no small feat for a results-oriented caregiver with a Messiah complex, so I self-regulate to the calm eye in the middle of a Hurricane of activity.
I watch, comment and occasionally, marginally, participate.
Having always been incredibly active, it's frustrating to still be in the game of life but directed to sit on the bench!
I've always been "the starter" in my life but cancer and multiple surgeries leave me indeed seated.
Things get a tad better every day.
Well, physically anyway.
I drove for the first time since the latest surgery, following Sarah to drop off the Beach Wagon for new tires.
Sarah's in a hurry because she's got shit tons to do.
I drive the precise speed limit because I'm enjoying every second of being outside our house and not at a Hospital!
An home, Che's at pre-school, Cassidy's asleep in bed laying in front of her computer logged in with the Chatham County School system to learn and I'm sitting on the sofa staring out of the window on a rainy day.
Beth Orton's "Oo Child" streams in my ears
It's hard to heal.
It's a struggle finding the balance between rest and exercise, remaining mentally engaged with nothing to do, focusing on healing from surgery while wanting badly to help and, most selfishly, knowing I'm meeting none of Sarah's needs, physical or otherwise, and watching Che struggle with her Daddy who's never well.
It's hard keeping my nose above the darkness when I lose balance and I can feel the cancer and hear Death's knock in the distance.
I live to dance with my wife in a nighttime surf under a full moon rise over the Ocean; for both of us to scuba dive with Che and to excitedly tremble when the girls are away or asleep in their own rooms and Sarah and I both are ready!
Sometimes, not too often, we can reach across the chasm of our crazy lives to clearly see and understand each other as we are and believe we'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun but, for now anyway, there's just our love giving the other occasional clear moments of understanding.
We're controlling as much as we can while admitting, without saying it loud, that we're the ones seemingly being controlled.
We mostly react.
Sarah spins endless plates on sticks only rarely losing one while I work to heal and keep the Grim Reaper at bay.
But in the rare moments when we do connect, without words, we let each other know there'll never come a day "when we put it together and get it all done."
Some day, our heads are not going any lighter.
The world is definitely not getting brighter.
It's extremely possible that right now is as good as things are going to get!
Our world is insanely crazy with no end in the forecast, beams of sunlight only occasionally break through massive dark clouds and we've gone accustomed to the heaviness of cancer, how it sucks life out of everyone in our family, and not just me keeping my nose above water or Sarah's exhausting never ending dance through each day.
But there are these moments, Holy seconds when there's only Sarah acknowledging me and me totally zoned on her, and we both know that when "I need love, I hold out my hands and I touch love".
For now anyway, this is our new normal
It's all we've really got.
