cause essay

am content.  Not just because I have recently eaten or had relations with my wife or had a martini.  I mean I am really content to the point of beyond happy.  There comes a time when a person suddenly realizes they fit in their own skin and don’t have to be concerned with the warts or cold sores covering said skin.  I attribute this to three basic principles: Humility, Open mindedness, and Humor.  There may be others involved but I’m not bright enough to pick them out.  Coming to the realization I am okay is like a latent epiphany, it’s something I just realized that probably happened a while ago when I was too busy thinking about other things to notice.  Maybe I was wondering why humans look like their dogs and not the other way around.  Spare me a minute and I’ll tell you how I became satisfied with me.

                I lived most of my life believing I was the center of the universe.  Copernicus was wrong in that he said the earth revolved around the sun…it revolved around my mother’s son.  I took what I wanted when I wanted and did what I wanted where I wanted when I wanted.  The world was built for me.  I could build anything, ride anything and fix anything.  Then there was something I couldn’t fix.  My wife was diagnosed with a rather aggressive brain tumor.  All the money, cars and businesses I’d built didn’t mean squat.  There was nothing I could do but give it all up as the creditors came and my social cachet fell.  I found work because it had insurance not for prestige.  People I scoffed at months earlier were now making me dinners so I wouldn’t have to cook.  My world became inverted and my wife became the center of the universe.  I begged God or Allah or Jah or Bob or whoever to please forgive me and give her more time.  It worked for seven years.  We were both happy with that.

                In that time I learned about Rakhi, aromatherapy, acupuncture, reading the scriptures, and so many other modalities I can’t list them here.  I am far too pragmatic to be clutching at straws, so I researched them with a passion, not to prove them wrong but to prove them right.  My wife kept her faith and I, being agnostic, opened up to it.  I learned there is no such thing as false hope, only hope.  Although the scientific imperial data seeking me was still there, it was muted as we put hot rocks on her back to ease the pain while we talked of the fate in store for her.  She was a nurse, well versed in science and knew her facts from fiction, yet she was okay with what was happening.  It took years for her to teach me to just let go and let it be.  At the end of it, she had convinced me to accept things for what they are, rather than bitch about them because they aren’t what I wanted them to be.

                We were in the cafeteria at Eastern Maine Medical Center, she with her half-shaved head with staples in it, a Johnny and an I.V. pole and me with the clothes I’d worn for about 96 hours.  Her doctors wanted her to ambulate, so we went to get custard.  The cashier asked if she was a patient there.  She looked at him straight faced and said no, she was with the band.  We had fun with haircuts over the years, never stooping to wigs unless she could sculpt them into garish cartoonisms or tres chic masterpieces.  Walker time came, and so did the 12 volt air horn that played Dixie.  She put a ½” nut in her mouth for her x-ray and tried to smuggle a bag of microwave popcorn into the MRI.  She was truly a sick woman, but liberated of the society’s need to conform made her healthier.  Norman Cousins locked himself in a hotel room and played Three Stooges videos after he was diagnosed, and he lived a good long life because of it.  My wife hated the Three Stooges and hotels, but taught me the importance of humor nonetheless.

                So you think this essay is about my wife and not me?  You’re wrong.  I was the most miserable person on earth, wanted to just die.  I think anyone would.  My wife taught me how to be okay with what was happening, how to use humor, open-mindedness and humility to get through.  These lessons I learned I impart to you, because I am all right with my life, and I want you to be too.  Humility brings you back down to earth, open-mindedness lets you know why, and humor puts you back up.  I have been talking about this journey like it was mine, in reality I was just a passenger who learned a lot on the ride.  Life is good now, and I am “come to terms” with that.