Tomorrow, my Dave will receive his sister Sandra's kidney. He's been on dialysis since October 2014, and it seems he's gotten more and more sick over the last six months or so. Call it a blessing, a gift, a miracle - whatever you call it, his life is going to make a huge turn for the better a few days from now.
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Sometimes when I get sucked into Facebook for long periods of time, I'm struck by how everyone else's life seems rosy and easy. Kids off to college, lovely vacations, new babies/grandbabies, family meals, weekend hikes, cute pets, the ubiquitous "throwbacks" and "flashbacks"... and don't forget the selfies! Frankly, a lot of it doesn't seem like real life to me. Is all that stuff real?
To be clear, I'm not casting aspersions... I myself try to make sure I don't puke on Facebook because I want my posts to be encouraging, entertaining, honest, perhaps mildly tasteless from time to time but not off-putting. I spent decades feeling sorry for myself, my situation, my upbringing, my tragedies (self-wrought and otherwise)... ain't nobody wants to see that crap on Facebook....and besides, as my friend Paul advised, I'm learning to be content in all circumstances.
All circumstances?
OK, most circumstances.
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Sandra asked me a couple of days ago how I'm doing. Please note that this is the sister who is giving up an ORGAN for her brother tomorrow. And she asks how I'm doing.
Well, of course it made me cry (what doesn't?), and it also made me realize that I have been working very hard at staying very busy so I don't have to pay attention to how I'm doing. I don't want to think about it.
Because the truth is - I'm scared shitless.
I have a remarkable and impressive list of things that I'm scared about, and I let them cycle through my brain in the wee hours and steal my slumber. Things about the surgery, his health beyond the surgery, the kids, my dad, my job, my weight, the election, our lawn, my house clutter, his sight, my shoulder, my car registration, the kids some more, back to his health again... and then start all over and throw in a couple of new things that I missed the first time around.
It occurs to me now how much I've taken him for granted, my Dave. He is always there on the other side of the bed, every night that I've been in it for the last 18 years. He almost always has a meal on the table when I get home from work, and the only thing I ever have to do with laundry is put mine away. We are rarely out of milk and the larder is never completely empty (despite the frequent teenage lament that "there's nothing to eat in this house").
We sit side by side most evenings, watching something we've recorded on the DVR or binging on something we missed (finally finished House of Cards last night... a little unnerving, here in this nutty election cycle). Our new living room is arranged such that we sit close, thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder. Sometimes I like to just tuck my left hand under his right thigh - I don't know why. I just like it there.
He has the most beautiful blue eyes, with obnoxiously long black eyelashes, and a gut-busting sense of humor and a smile that just makes you want to smile back.
He is here when I get home from work. Every day. The mail is on the kitchen counter, and any packages I might have ordered have been brought in from the rain.
Is he perfect? Oh HECK no. He's a grumpy old right-wing Navy-vet curmudgeon who curses and loses his temper and we fight about the kids, and there are many things on which we do not see eye-to-eye... such as the pros of having a dog and the importance of a good discount on something that I'm sure I'll use one of these days. But he's mine and I love him.
So, anyway, they're putting my curmudgeon to sleep tomorrow and putting in a kidney from his sister and even though I've heard dozens of stories about how successful and common kidney transplants are these days...
I'm scared. Really and truly scared. That's what feels real to me at this moment.
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And yet. What is real? Is it what we see? What we feel?
I'm reminded of our wedding day, the day when our ceremony at Reading United Methodist Church included a surprise reading by the officiating pastor, Mike Smith, of one of my very favorite pieces of literature ever:
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real. It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand".
(credit: Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit)
Ah, yes, I remember now. Love is real. Not only the husband-wife kind of love, but the parent-child, brother-sister, sister-sister, brother-brother, partner-partner, friend-friend kinds too. All kinds of love. It's the only real that there is.
Especially divine love from my Creator. I don't even pretend to understand THAT.
And as I look over the chapters of my life thus far, love has always been the main character of the story. Sure, I've been scared before, and mad, and selfish, and overwhelmed, etc., etc. But I'm real. I strive to be real, anyway.
Love makes us real.
And the rest is just noise.
