He’s a Super Hero, or Maybe a Saint

Did I mention my husband, Dale, has become my caretaker? If in our earlier, hectic married years of parenthood and trials . . . you know the ones where you pass each other in the doorway, coming and going, stopping long enough to say, “We’re overdrawn at the bank again honey,”. . . yes, those years . . . If I ever wondered if my husband would stick around for the thick and thin of it, well I have my answer. He would, and he has! Our family and friends think he’s a real super hero, maybe even a saint.

I always loved the children’s novel, “The Velveteen Rabbit,” by Margery Williams. Its simple, yet profound message of how toys become real was a true commentary on our lives. “It doesn't happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. 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 your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are ‘real’ you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand!”

Just like in the beloved storybook, becoming a “real” saint doesn’t happen all at once, although in my husband Dale’s case that point might be arguable. Real life heroes or saints are usually molded one painful step at a time. It takes a long time. Dale was not always a saint, ready for knighthood. He used to be a regular everyday, ordinary, tired, overworked, unappreciated husband. In the early days of his newly acquired motherhood duties, he couldn’t even clean the bathroom, let alone cook a meal fit for human consumption. Once I heard him whispering to our (then) 12-year-old daughter, Ashley, asking her how to clean the toilet! To be fair, it’s not that I entered marriage with any amazing cleaning skills of my own, having to finally take a professional cleaning class, learning how to rid myself of that annoying bathroom scum build-up around my sinks.

Dale and I, though similar in some things, are very different in others. Similarly we both love the theater, creative arts, and travel. He’s hilarious as a traveling companion with his quiet, dry sense of humor, murmuring humorous comments under his breath and lightening my mood. I have truly only seen his temper flare a few times during our marriage. The first time was at me – in the early married days of “Who is this person I married anyway?” and then again at a car repairman trying to rip us off. All of our girls remember his anger when our one and only teenage son talked back to me “once.” In all cases Dale eventually walked away to calm down, avoiding potential bloodshed and violence, a trait I have come to appreciate.

Dale and I are different in that I love to talk, rattling on for hours about this and that . . . well I don’t really talk all that much, not like those people in the PTA meetings who have an opinion about everything, that you’d just like to yell at saying, “Please shut up, because we want to go home tonight!” But I talk a lot more than he does. Dale is a methodical thinker, who would never put his foot in his mouth, bursting forth with the first comment that came into his head. He thinks about his answers profoundly, before carefully giving his answers, usually good ones too, if you are patient and can endure the silent wait. I’m not . . . patient I mean, even though Lyme disease has worn me down into almost patient city. Our conversations go something like this, “Dale, what do you think about [insert topic]?” Upon which he begins thinking, forming his well thought out reply, his words of anticipated wisdom. I am breathlessly waiting, really wanting his opinion. Minutes pass. It seems like years. I wonder if he has fallen asleep with his eyes open, like the time he did in the downtown intersection during rush hour traffic, causing numerous people to spring from their cars to see if he’d had a heart attack. But no, he is still thinking. Impatiently, I move on to my next comment, telling him how I feel, inserting yet another question, sometimes a third. And suddenly it happens. He opens his mouth and his philosophical words of wisdom, akin to King Benjamin’s in the Bible, spill forth. He is responding to my original question, which sadly, I have now forgotten, having no idea what we are talking about!

In the beginning of my Lyme disease, Dale’s cooking skills included three things: spaghetti from a can, canned soup, and homemade whole wheat bread. Not overlooking his can opener talents, you have to admit the homemade bread thing was impressive, even if it was my recipe, which I admittedly hating making, as it created confusion and a messy kitchen in my already chaotic life filled with constant interruptions. He on the other hand, found bread making relaxing after a hard day at work. Not having formerly given cooking much thought as I entered married life, my newly acquired cooking goals were basic in nature (right after learning to boil water). Basically my cooking goals could be boiled down (pun intended) to one simple three word statement . . . “fast, nutritious (meaning a green salad with every meal), and preferably delicious,” but not absolutely necessary on the later. Cooking was not a creative outlet for me, so our early shared cooking routine became this. On nights Dale made bread, I’d bath the kids and do the customary bedtime schedule. Later we would enjoy a warm piece of freshly baked bread together, before slicing and freezing the remaining loafs.

However, my sudden illness and abandonment of our formerly shared household duties put everything in Dale’s ball court and he was caught completely off guard. At the same time as my illness began, Dale’s beloved father passed away. While grieving his father and perplexed by my sudden unexplained illness, Dale’s initial response was to buy a large case of chicken pot pies to feed our six hungry children, all with various different crazy schedules. Everybody but our three-year-old was literally fending for themselves! Even three-year-old Mckenzie became efficient in taking care of herself with Dale’s “pour your cereal yourself” breakfast menu and his brown paper bagged refrigerator lunches, both easily within her reach. But as my illness persisted with no end in sight, Dale eventually had to step up to the plate and swing the bat, remarkably hitting the ball way out of the ballpark! I know Dale’s mother, who was an accomplished cook and has now passed on as well, is looking down on her son’s new chief skills with pride, remembering how he and his older brother, Leon, once tied her apron strings to the kitchen cupboard while she made dinner for her two mischievous little boys.

Today, in our newly acquired roles, I have learned to appreciate the business like skills a man brings to running a household. I don’t know why I never considered organizing my menu and grocery-shopping list on a spreadsheet? . . . Oh wait, that was when we still remembered how to balance our checkbooks with a pen and a calculator. Now of course we have simplified our already complicated lives with computers. It’s difficult to remember how we managed without Internet banking, bill pay and Quicken downloads. In addition we need printers’ to keep copies in our old-fashioned file boxes and external hard drives to back up all our computer generated hard work, least we suddenly lose it!

Humorously, our present day interests are still as varied, as they are similar. While I enjoy movie genres of romantic comedies and heartfelt dramas, my husband enjoys watching sports, sports and oh yes, more sports. Oddly, he has also now become abscessed with the Food Network channel. Dale has become somewhat of an amateur, gourmet cook, even with all the crazy diets and limited food choices I’ve been placed on over the years. Like Bobby Flay, he cooks with flare, creativity and enjoyment, creating works of art to behold, tantalizing to the taste buds. He is my hero . . . like I said, a “real saint,” and "once you are real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand!”