October 2nd, so far it's a bit overcast in Bloomington and Autumn is in the air. At night, it's been going down to the 40's, and I love that. This presages good sleeping weather for me--somehow I never feel that I surrender to the deep, lovely, embrace of sleep in Summer in quite the way I can when it gets colder.
Today is a special day because Charles turns 58, although he honestly looks 45 and has the keen optimism of someone even younger. I've made the chili, the gluten-free peanut butter cookies he likes and Rally is ready to lick him to death. His Facebook is flooded, evidence of a life spent collegially, peacefully, evidence of a long career mentoring, evidence of good nature.
Charles and I have, for 19 years, been family to one another; he's as much brother to me as Jim, as much confidant as anyone has ever been. There's very little surprise left between us, though in 2013, this cancer, it's speed and ferocity, was a shock to us both.
I've tried, over the past couple of years, to resist thinking of Charles as a caregiver, preferring to think that we were still partners in an adventure, that the adventure would eventually end, and there would be the new normal to fall back upon. A diminished Mark, a usual Charles, but still, well-tied and bonded by the passing of so many years.
It has been this year, I'm certain, that Charles has slipped more into caregiver than just safari buddy. I can't lift much, so he puts my pallet of water bottles into the refrigerator. I can't talk, everyone calls him. I can't clean much, he does. I'm exhausted most of the time, so he cooks for himself. He drives me everywhere--you don't want someone on a steady diet of opiods to be weaving through construction on SR 37.
He does all of this, and more I have enumerated, without griping. I take him away from work, which he loves, and there's no complaint. He goes to the store for me without snark, he checks on me when there's no one else who would do it. He fusses at me when fussing is very comforting.
Todaty, October 2nd, is a Friday, and he's at chemo with me, so he can hear what the doctor has to say about the biopsy coming up, the surgical wound repair, the inevitable hospital stay of indeterminate length. I didn't ask for it, I didn't have to ask.
Of course I hope that Charles has a really wonderful birthday, but that's just the tip of it. I want him to keep having a wonderful life. I look for him to find a new great passion with a smart, compassionate man, I hope he is finally paid as much as he's worth, I want him to have the very best shoes I can help him buy, and experience the joys of everything he deserves, all of the vast trove of it.
In general, caregivers are pushed into the background, which is unfortunate, but the drama is often easier to focus upon, and I've been supplying that in spades. For the record: I would not be here today without the unquestioning, freely given support of my caregiver, chauffeur, shoulder, rock of normalcy. Happy birthday is a bit less than what he deserves: Happy Life, Charles
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