I’m sorry for being ill; common words in my home

A painful evening

It’s Saturday evening, dinner is done, kitchen cleaned, showers are completed and everyone is relaxing. Only that is not exactly how it is. The last part of everyone is relaxing is SO FAR from reality. Dinner is done, but my husband likely didn’t eat with us. He was in too much pain to eat. Kitchen is cleaned up and showers are done. The kids are in the den watching a show or playing a game. They are doing their best to be quiet. My husband is holed up in the living room with the doors shut, lights down and the volume on the TV down low. He is in PAIN!!!!! He can hardly be still. His head moves constantly, back and forth as if he is shaking his head no, from the pain. Every sound makes him flinch. I open the door to check on him (it pops, no matter how softly I try to push it open, it always pops!). The pop makes him recoil in pain. You can see it in his face. That tiny little pop is like an ice pick to his brain.

Don’t be sorry

When he is in pain he just wants the house quiet and me beside him. I’ll sit by him as long as I can before I need to go check on the kids or get them in bed. When I need to get up, he apologizes. He says “I’m sorry I am not much help”. “No need to apologize!”, I say. I come back to sit with him. As he is fidgeting on the couch beside me he again says “I’m sorry, I’m bugging you by moving.” “No, you’re not, don’t apologize” I say. His pain spikes higher! With the increased pain comes despair.   He says, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”. I ask him for what? He says the same thing every time. “For me, for this, for all of this! You don’t deserve this!”. It crushes me every time he does this. I feel like a broken record with how many times I have answered him with the same thing. I mean what I say to him too! “Don’t apologize, you have nothing to be sorry about! You didn’t do anything wrong! You say I don’t deserve this but you don’t deserve this pain. You didn’t do anything to deserve this, it is just what it is, Our life.” It doesn’t make the pain less; it doesn’t make the reality of the situation any easier, but it is the truth. I want him to know he doesn’t need to be sorry, I am not. I am sorry he is suffering; I do pray it stops. I am not sorry for this life. I don’t feel that I deserve better as I don’t think there is anything wrong with this life, besides his agony.

“Don’t apologize, you have nothing to be sorry about!……..it is just what it is, our life.”

The kids see him in this much pain and they will leave the room. They don’t know how to react. After five years you would think they would, but alas they are still children and have not figured out how to best respond, so they leave. They will avoid coming near him. I think they are actually scared sometimes.  When my husband sees them leave the room or they tell me good night but quietly sneak past him to go to bed, he apologizes. It devastates him to know they are afraid when he is in that much pain. Again I tell him “don’t apologize!”. It is probably natural to apologize like this. It is natural to me that I should, and always will tell him he has no need to apologize for his illness nor his pain. He did not choose this; it is just life!

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

No one knows what will be thrown at them in this life. As the saying goes “when life give you lemons, make lemonade”. We try to have as much lemonade as possible in our home!