She sat in her wheelchair, impatiently yet patiently waiting for me.
She knew I could only move so fast with her three children, a little one tugging at me and an older one having a fit about how she didn't want to look stupid at church with the wrong kinds of socks and crying about not being able to find any. The oldest groaned about getting up early, heaving those heavy sighs around the house indicating he wasn't happy to have to do this or anything.
I let the complaints wash over me and enjoyed the little one tugging at me as I tended to my work.
As I unlaced the shoes, her legs, that once had gone hiking with me, had taught me to dance, had gone for walks on the beach, now hung emaciated, blood pooling in her legs from lack of use, and immobile and essentially...useless. All they could be used for now really was to wear shoes, and that was just so they wouldn't get colder than they already were from not getting any use.
Shoes.
She used to wear nice shoes.
She used to love nice shoes.
Now, shoes were just a matter of convenience really. A burden, really. She couldn't put them on herself much anymore except for her crocks and even then required help. They were just one more item in a long list of items that needed to be taken care of that she couldn't do herself anymore as she increasingly became helpless. As she watched me work with her shoes, she not only saw me prep to put them on her for her, she also saw the years rendering her entirely immobile, confining her to a bed, to watch her children come and go but not be able to share those experiences with them because she couldn't follow them or keep up with them anymore.
If her back or even her legs itched? She couldn't scratch it anymore. Those days were gone as the disability ravaged her body from its own effects in combination with three child births. Now, even putting on shoes was its own exasperation. Those little things you take for granted, that you don't even think about, but will notice if they aren't done right such as the sock seam running under a toenail, or the tongue of the shoe not being properly positioned, the laces snugged just right...can't be done herself anymore. And nice shoes? She's down to two pairs of crocks and a pair of black Nike Jordan's with pink hearts on them, cute, but totally not the style she ever wore and just a matter of convenience. On the upside, shoes never need be replaced because she doesn't wear them out. The same pair, year after year after year.
And out of her love she didn't dare complain, she was just happy not to have been abandoned as happened to so many with her disease. Husbands who decided this was more of a burden than they could carry, served divorce papers, took the children, and placed them in nursing homes to atrophy and die.
It isn't perfect but we figure it out, forgive, repent, apologize, press forward and try to make it the best we can.
What lies ahead in the years to come, I don't know.
Helpless doesn't even begin to describe how I feel as I have to do more and more just to make life functional. Becoming aware of how she likes her socks put on so that they don't drive her crazy, paying attention to tags that she can no longer fix that itch and drive her crazy, learning how to part her hair so she doesn't feel like a freak in public with that annoying part-gone-awry that drives so many of us nuts before we leave the house....
How does it end?
I don't know.
Overwhelmed? Yeah. And starting a new career and raising three children while I have to leave her at home now and even leave her behind as I head across the state to start working a job to earn pay for us to move into a new place by my new work. The world rushes around me and yet I have no idea how I am going to make it work.
Peoples' criticisms of me or even of her fall on deaf ears anymore for how hard we do or don't work at this or make it work. It is our own path that others haven't walked. Even if the path looks similar, we are different people carrying our own hidden burdens. We each have to walk our own path the best we can.
Walk a mile in someone elses' shoes? It isn't possible. It never will be.
I don't have energy to try someone elses' shoes, or even to criticize their footwear. I got my own path to walk, with my wife rolling beside me with three children in tow, an uncertain path ahead of us that doesn't look too favorable. Whether you are grateful or not, or think your path is harder or easier....it doesn't matter, except I wish you well. I have to focus on the path ahead of us, and I don't have energy to do much else and hope that I don't slow others down from their important journeys in this world.
For now, I focus on making the laces "just right" because she can't do it herself. I pull the tongue out and turn her socks so the seam doesn't bother her as her feet prepare to hang uselessly and untended for the rest of the day as the world and we march on our way while she sits in maddening discomfort that even medication can't fix most days for those little things she can't do herself anymore.
Curse the disability? It doesn't do much good. I've tried. It is still there. I'm still here. We're still here. But not as much as we used to be. And yet more than we used to be as we become grateful for those small details we used to take for granted, thankful for them when we get to enjoy them.
So I focus for now, just for a moment, and let the world go on its merry way because I have work to do and its more important than almost anything right now. I don't know how I'll do what else is going to come, and nothing else matters but for just this moment, I'm tying my wife's shoes.
