St. Partner

Today is a big day for me. As you read this, my partner either will be taking me or has already taken me to see my orthopedic specialist and have the cast removed from my leg! Woo-hoo! Wish me well as I enter the next phase of my recovery, which I presume will include some physical therapy, but also includes returning to work.

I want to give a word of thanks to my family and very close friends who have held me close and showed their care and concern. I truly appreciate it.

This blog post, however, is about my partner who I have been referring to lately with my family and friends as "Saint." For the past eight weeks, he has dutifully cared for me in 1,001+ ways. From helping me to bathe, to preparing meals, to doing all of the grocery shopping, to clearing my path of passage so I would not trip (again), to carrying this box of reviews here and picking up that box of plans there so I can continue my civic functions as best I can, to finding things to keep me entertained and less pre-occupied with my plight, to putting up with dozens of family friends visiting me (he hates visitors), to listening to me grump and grumble, to carrying everything for me everywhere, and for generally putting up with me in a million ways.

Okay, you say, "you're in that type of relationship. You often say that you are as close as being married. I mean, that's what he should be doing for you anyway." Right?

Well, there are two ways of looking at it: "I did it because I had no other choice" vs. "I did it because I wanted to."

My partner has truly wanted to help me. It's been hell sometimes, too, with snowpocalypse and its relentless brother-of-a-storm right after that during a time when I only had a splint on my leg and truly couldn't walk. He literally had to lift me in and out of chairs and on and off the toilet. He has had to handle removing 40" of snow over four storms while I was laid up. He had to get the generator-running during multiple power outages. He had to cart me to doctor's appointments on top of everything else. But he wanted to.

I sense that he is as anxious as I am for my life to return to some semblance of normal. He wants what is best for me. He allows me to take on activities that I reasonably can do that do not run risk of causing further injury or prolonging my healing. But he has really clamped down on me doing anything that might risk any stress or strain whatsoever. NO going anywhere -- not on his watch!

I think of all the time that I have been in this situation and think: there's no way I could have managed this alone. I worry about friends who truly are alone and who have no one else. All of us should have people in our lives who will care for us if we need it. But few of us have someone who just does it not because he "has to," but because, as St. Partner says, "it's what I do."

This, fellow blog readers, is why my partner and I have melded our hearts as one. We respond very similarly. We see what needs to be done and just do it. Caring for people is not a "visit-grandma this quarter" kinda thing. It is an ongoing process.

I am blessed. Truly blessed. I love my man with my every fiber of my being.

Now, onward! Off with the cast and on with my life!