Voice Of a New Day

My eyes opened, and I was awake. The house was silent. A sudden clunking noise let me know the ice maker in the kitchen refrigerator dumped its load into the ice bin. The silence rang, echoed, mocked me with all that was missing.

There was no sound of the hospital air mattress with its constant baffle and pressure. No snoring and gasping, or calls for help.

I took a deep breath. The window was open, letting in the scents of an early spring morning. The house no longer smelled like body waste products.

Rolling over on the bed, I began my morning stretching exercises. Afterward, I got down on the floor to do my push-ups. My dog laid there patiently, waiting for me to finish so she could roll over to get belly rubs and pets. I swear she knows how to count.

I got dressed, the dog dancing around me, and then took her outdoors. She made a dash for the back fence line, while I filled the scoop with chicken feed, and brought a pitcher of water to refill their bowl. Since the day was sunny, all the chickens were out to be fed, squawking and wandering around underfoot. I fed them, laughing as always to see them jostling for position, trying to jump up to get at the feed before I poured it out.

Going back inside, I put a pot of coffee on. It chuckled and burbled on the counter, then stopped. I listened to the silence ring like a bell. It had weight, that silence, pressing down like a bell jar.

The coffee finished, I poured a cup and took it back outside with me. I sat down at a round wrought-iron table, with plants half-surrounding it. There were lemon and lime trees, succulents and tropicals, cannas in a rainbow of colors.

I wrote in my journal for some time, occasionally taking time out to close my eyes, absorb the beauty of the day. The sunshine on my face seemed to warm my soul as well, a soothing balm to my ragged spirit.

The cardinal and blue jay were dueling it out for the best nesting spot in the high maple tree. Robins were happily chirruping along, already nesting. Caruso, the mockingbird, was working his way through his impressive repertoire. Sparrows, finches and juncos popped in and out of the coneflower bed.

My memory spiraled back, each turn another year, faster and faster. It stretched out to when we first got together. I remembered morning swims, getting up early on weekends to work on the property, cleaning up years of neglect, making it into a place to enjoy and be proud of. Those were long, full, fun days, cutting down brush, building a new set of steps for the hot tub, making the pool something to enjoy again. Working until sunset, then taking a shower to wash off the day’s grime. Ordering pizza and wings, eating sitting on the couch in the living room while drinking cans of cold beer.

Memories moved forward, to when I was in night school, dealing with the death of my father, finishing my degrees. We would sit in the hot tub after my night classes and talk. Those pipe dreams of being millionaires, of me retiring in my 40s, of the two of us enjoying a shared life, with time to spend on the things we wanted to do.

Watching your disease slowly degenerate, from a single hand crutch to two crutches to leg braces plus crutches. Eventually, the manual wheelchair made its appearance, to be followed inevitably by the power chair.

Through it all, your spirit never flagged. You never looked for pity, and you wouldn’t accept it if someone offered it. You found ways to work around things. Crazy Rube Goldberg contraptions, some of them, but they worked.

I remembered the day you decided to give up your car keys. You told me you didn’t trust your own reflexes any more, even with the adaptive hand controls for your van. You would not be that person, the one who causes an accident because they wouldn’t relinquish their car keys. That was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen you do.

We installed a Hoyer lift by the pool, and you continued using it for a few more years. Eventually, there came a time when you could no longer support yourself in the water. That’s when you quit swimming. You had already quit using the hot tub when you could no longer climb up the steps to get in.

By this time, seizures and strokes had started occurring. You began spending more time in the bed, less time outside in your wheelchair. You needed more help to get simple things done.

I had to laugh — I had retired in my 40s, all right, and was fiscally in a fair situation. But this was not the life I had imagined. There was no travel, none of the things I had thought we would do together.

Instead, I still had all the work to do to maintain a home and property, with a pool, dog and chickens, plus the care of an invalid. So we traveled the world with my cuisine, cooking up a plethora of feasts from different cultures. We saw the world without leaving the house.

The mockingbird flew up to the chair next to mine, perched on it, cocking its head, looking at me, sizing me up. Deciding I was a worthy audience, it proceeded to serenade me with the most exquisite string of bird calls. No two repeated. Each one pitch-perfect. Then it flew off in search of something else.

I learned enough medical skills to become a nurse. From treating pressure ulcers, dealing with hallucinating patients, all the skills of cleaning and changing someone in the bed without them moving out of it, give a painless injection, intramuscular or subcutaneous. I learned the ways to move and transfer a paralyzed patient.

Patient, husband, friend, lover, life mate. All words for the same person. I took over the bills and bookkeeping. I’m terrible at filing.

We got a part-time caregiver to help out. We needed all the help we could get by that point. She helped make the next years livable.

The years spiraled faster; the decline increasing. And, eventually, we came to that day when you told me, “I don’t know if all this is worth it any more.”

The hardest thing was to let you know it was OK to go. After that, it didn’t take long.

I am left with three decades of memories: conversations; laughter; long evenings outside, watching the night descend; barbecues; pool parties; jam sessions that lasted until dawn; listening to our friends play live music at bars; the smell of sun-dried sheets on our bed.

Those are the memories I keep. I have no need for those other ones.

The cardinal won the battle for the maple tree, and is telling me to cheer, cheer, cheer up. The climbing warmth of the day brings the perfumes of flowers with it. Outside, there is no mocking silence.

There is only the voice of a new day.