There's a very special person whose was born 59 years ago today, whose birthday I'd like to honor.
This person goes "above and beyond" all the time. He's gentle and kind, loving of heart and generous of spirit, and he takes the vows he said six and a half years ago very seriously. When it comes to "for better or for worse", we've experienced a lot of "worse" together. When it comes to "in sickness and in health", we've experienced a lot of sickness together, too, most of it mine. Yet he never wavers, never hesitates to do what is needed, and never complains. (That last floors me to this day.) In short, he is my caregiver, my partner, and my hero.
He thinks what he does is nothing special and has said just that fairly often. I think what he does is special indeed and to me, he is my hero. This knight in shining armor claims that the armor is tarnished, scratched, dented, and falling off in places. It is not.
Sara R. thought he is someone special as well, and has honored him with a lovecatcher quilt for all that he does as my caregiver, which is a lot. He does things that no one should rightly have to do for his partner. Here is just some of what he does or has done throughout our relationship:
• If I have to throw up (which happens fairly often, unfortunately) while I’m on dialysis or am otherwise unable to make it to the bathroom, he cleans up after me. He never says anything negative about having to do it, either.
• He gets out of bed in the middle of the night to clean up after a dog who’s being sick in the corner.
• He is the only person in the house bringing in an income and has been for five and a half years now.
• He takes over what I can no longer do. This includes becoming the only one who can clean up a catbox or scrub out the toilet.
• He cooks (and is good at it) foods that I can eat and fixes them in ways that make me want to eat them.
• He always feeds the dogs, no matter how late it is at night or how early he has to be up in the morning.
• He does my laundry if I don’t have time or energy to do it myself, and prefers to do his own laundry himself.
• He changed his last name when we were married. We took each other’s last names and both have hyphenated last names now.
• He stands up for me to my family.
• He wakes up in the middle of the night when I am in pain to give me a massage.
• He’s not the Precinct Committee Officer for our precinct – I am – but he does about as much work as I do on doorbelling and other volunteering, driving me and/or candidates around, working at Democrats’ booths (including outside in the rain), and getting drafted by me for lots of other volunteer work for candidates or for the Democrats. He never gets recognized for it, except by me.
• When his employer at the time put him on salary, with fully-paid health insurance but with insurance for me as well that we paid for 100% out of pocket, he discovered that we were falling behind financially and asked his employer to cancel his own insurance and cover me with his fully-paid-for employee policy instead, which they did, despite the fact that he had just been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. I was thus able to have continuous coverage for over 2 years when we started with our present insurance company, which meant that they could not deny me the dialysis I needed or delay it in any way. There is a very, very good chance that this saved my life.
• He's spending his birthday here with me at home hemodialysis training, learning ways to help with setting up and getting me on, and, later, cleaning everything up.
For all these reasons and many more, I call him a quiet hero. He doesn’t tout himself for what he does; he doesn’t even recognize that what he does is in any way special. He makes it possible for me to stay alive and keeps me in health care. He takes care of what I really need, and does it in such a loving way that he makes me feel completely cared for. He goes out of his way to do what is needed without a peep. To me, he is very much a hero.
Here is a picture of him with the lovecatcher quilt you folks wrote messages for, and which Sara R. and her sister Ann made for him, because what he does is special. Those of you who met him at NN10 know what he looks like already, and got to see that quilt as well as mine. I think he's a nice-looking man.
Happy birthday to my true love, Charles CurtisStanley, and many more.