Friends:
I know I made a big deal a few weeks ago about how tough I was and how it was a matter of mind over body and stuff like that. But something became very clear to me this week and it’s something that has been gestating for quite a while.
Frankly, I’m a bit of a pansy.
I know, I know—what kind of a man would ever admit something like that? Well, a man who is comfortable in who he is… and who he isn’t. This past weekend Amy and I were moving our offices, moving on up to a larger space with its own conference room, separate offices and even some storage space. It was a long, tough weekend. I don’t know how many times I went up those 21 stairs, hauling furniture and boxes and cabinets with the help of my dad and brother. And by the end of the day on Sunday, I was wiped out. Monday December 30th started off ok, but with each trek up the stairs with a box in my hands, it was another step down in my stamina such that by the end of the day, I was on the couch, shivering and coughing.
Needless to say Tuesday the 31st, New Year’s Eve, I was a mess. And where did this illness come from? From Amy, of course, who had been battling this same illness for what seemed like weeks. But that is where Amy and I are different. On Tuesday the 31st, I could barely get out of bed—no going to the new office, no arguing with AT&T or trying to get the computers up and running. It was “Sofa City” for me. Amy, on the other hand, was at the office, with our two daughters, emptying boxes, dealing with phone and computer people and the landlord and who knows who else. Was she feeling that much better than me? Probably not by much—but as I said, I am a pansy. The first hint of a sickness and I am on the couch. When I was a kid, my mom would be able to tell if my brother or I were sick and couldn’t go to school because she would hear the theme music from “Top Gun” playing, the video already in the VCR. Who has sick-day theme music? This guy does.
Amy, on the other hand, somehow pushes the sick feeling aside and gets to business. I mean, come on, a few weeks ago she handled a two-day arbitration feeling about as awful as I did on the 31st. Is she a robot?
When Amy was pregnant they were constantly prodding and poking, blood tests and all kinds of other procedures. Yet when she ordered me to take a blood test to rule out some kind of infant disease, you would have thought I was being asked to cut off a leg. Needles, shots, blood tests? Count me out, that stuff isn’t my cup of tea. But it was just a fact of life for Amy and grin and bear it she did.
And when the baby was ready to be born and the monitors were going off the charts and Amy was screaming and yelling, what was I doing? Complaining that she was hurting my hand, that’s what! Never in my life did I expect to see someone begging for a needle to be inserted directly into her spinal cord…
And the week after our daughter was born and Amy was back in the hospital again and I witnessed all kinds of tests, a spinal tap and blood tests and brain scans and whatever else they did, Amy soldiered on while I suffered in agony of how it all must feel.
Yes, my friends, I am truly a wimp. I still think that the reason I got sick this past week is because I simply never got around to getting that flu shot like I should have. It’s that damn “no needles” policy I try to espouse. A lot of good that did me, huh?
So alas, while I am whimpering and whining and begging for chicken soup for my namby-pamby soul, there’s Amy, lifting pianos on her back and juggling two kids and making a 7-course meal for dinner, all with a 103 fever.
And there were people out there who had problems with women in the military?? You have got to be kidding me!
A happy and healthy 2014 to you—and if you have to spend a day on the couch, make sure you have someone like Amy to take care of you… and find that Top Gun DVD video for you. I promise, it works like a charm.
LUCKY NUMBER 13 