My Wife Marsha

I think that it is time that I provide to you, dear reader, some more information about my wife Marsha. Oh sure, her name has been mentioned many times in the various articles I published on this website and I have told you about some of the things that she has done over the last one year plus to help me recover from my illness. However, I have not really told you about how important she has been not only in looking after our kids who were coping with what was going on but also looking after me as I recovered from the serious illness that I had.

She and I had some chats over the last few days and I learned some information from her that I never knew before from the time of my recovery. Obviously she did but never thought there was a reason to tell me about it. I am sure that you will learn what that was as we go through this article. 

Do excuse me but I'm not going to talk about in this article how well she did with my children ensuring that they were okay and not suffering too much because I was so sick. Naturally, as I assume everyone knows by now, she acted superbly. None of us had gone through something like this before in our family. The risks that I was carrying were serious ones that put pressure on my family members. Because of her and the way she carried out what was necessary to look after me, it made them able to face the mess that I was in and to deal with it. It now means that they will be able to handle any kind of terrible situation that may fall on me if I am to be seriously ill again. She needs to be congratulated for the strength that she had provided that helped my children live through the tragedy that they faced because of me. 

I hope that you now understand that this article is nothing other than my praise of her because she has done so well in living through this horrible situation. Clearly, because of her, I was able to do so well. She was able to hide for so long all of the concerns that she faced in looking after me in order to help me recover so well!  Not just my issues but those that she might suffer as well. 

Like many women, for all of her married years, her role was looking after the family as her main responsibility. The duties with respect to getting a job, making and then saving money, paying down the bills especially the mortgage, looking after the household's money and being the leader of the members of the family generally were the responsibility of the husband.  Or so it seemed. 

Clearly, I know now that women like Marsha speak with their husbands in the background so that they have an important role, even though not necessarily the seemingly most important one or the most public one, in the resolution of any matter in a family.   

I'm sure that you know already how important Marsha's role was in having me enter into the hospital and dealing with initial care at the time. While others may well have thought that my life was over, I found out from Marsha that this was not her thought at all. Ever. She knew that I was going to recover and she was going to help me do it even after I was suffering so much because no one really knew at that time what my illness really was.  It was just something that started in such a poor basis from the moment I was admitted to hospital.  I literally was days away from dying if I was not looked after properly. Nothing really troubled her and she was so positive.  That reaction is truly unbelievable for almost any person male or female and I am so grateful for her actions personally. 

What I did not know, and I never really thought about it too much, was how important her role was for the next month when I returned home.  As you know, dear reader, I knew nothing about what happened for that time period.  I was under constant heavy drug treatment until the middle of February. I cannot recall one thing that happened then because I was under so much medical care. I know now that she had a big role to play and it was not just for outside workers to look after.  She was responsible for medical concerns, understanding what my illness was carrying so she could carry on techniques to help solve my problems, looking after me, meal making, bathroom assistance and so on plus all of  her other usual jobs. Of course, she needed to help out her kids all of the time too.  

Her role was extremely difficult because she had responsibility for someone who needed a great deal of care. She had the obligation to look after someone who suffered greatly in the hospital and was brought home now for the first time. 

As you know now, she did a superb job. She told me recently that she never told me much about it because, after I went off of the drugs at the time, it was all over from a time perspective. She felt that she had no reason in her mind that she needed to reveal any information to me about it because it could cause me some concern especially at the time when I was doing a massive recovery.  Even recently, she really did not want to tell me very much about it because she was concerned that it could hurt my feelings. 

Frankly, one of Marsha's most important functions was learning about the operation of our home since she had not done most of this previously. I had done this as the "male" who did all of this when I was well and secure. Again, she had to learn how to do a lot of this very quickly on her own --- being responsible for taxes, water and electrical utility operation, upkeep outside, all of our different kinds of bills that had to be paid monthly, banking operation and so many other matters. Oh, I heard about some of the problems that she faced early on but wow, did she ever learn quickly how to handle these matters! Moreover, any outside official who thought they could push her around learned very quickly that they had better not even try to do that. I know several cases where she just moved up to a more senior level in the organization and got the problem solved exactly as SHE wanted it done and not how some junior level employee tried to impose on her! I have found out subsequently how terrorized people became of her if they were doing something wrong. They learned very quickly how tough she was and not to try to impose any solution on her to which she was opposed. 

Let me talk a little bit about house moving. She and my daughter believed that Marsha and I needed a new home. The one that we lived in just was too big for us at this time, especially when no one knew what my state would be. Having a two-story house was making little sense at the time when it appeared that I had significant walking problems. When she could early on, she began looking for new place for us to live. Unfortunately, she did not find very much because she was involved more in looking after me than having the time to go around looking for a new place. Just to jump forward, when she was able to discuss the situation with me, as I reported before, I absolutely refused to accept her advice to go to a condo or townhouse to live for a whole bunch of reasons. She, Melissa and I had a very strong conversation about it and they backed off to support what I wanted to do eventually. 

Fortunately, I changed my mind overnight after that decision was made and accepted everything that Marsha had been advocating the day before. She was absolutely right. I was completely wrong. 

As you know, I called our real estate agent about the house deals, selling our old one and buying a new one.  They were done so quickly at that time, both within a week once  placed on the  market. It was exactly doing what she really wanted to have done for our benefit at the time. Moreover, Marsha was the one who chose our new place to live in a very short period of time. She was the one who was able to go around with our agent to choose our new place of residence because I was unable to walk around very much at all at this time. She was the decision-maker about where we were going to live in the future. It took her all of about a few days to do the deal. Again, she was completely 100% correct in her decision-making. As usual. 

There is so much to talk about what she has done to salvage so fantastically what could  have been a horrific event.  I am not going to detail too much more of it in this article since I  could write many additional pages about it.  What she did though generally included: being in charge of the buying and selling of homes for our future, arranging for older furniture to be sold, retaining a moving company to arrange for the movement of furniture to the new house and  making sure that everything was done properly.   

She made sure that after we moved that I knew where our new place was located so I would not get lost.  She set up meetings with our neighbours whom I could meet while she helped me walk for hours a day so that my physical life was getting better.  Naturally our food at meals was so superb and she personally made sure our residence was well taken care. 

Of course Marsha still looked after me from the medical perspective and made sure that  I attended all necessary meetings with the various doctors to make certain that I was  healthy.  I did have a few strange medical effects taking  place that she ensured were not  serious or  permanent by having a doctor get involved as quickly as was required. 

I wish I could write a whole bunch more about how Marsha looked after me and our kids  in this very trying time.  However, I have given you enough info about her general activity so you will know how superbly she did.  She made me feel so great by looking after all of the important, and even less important, matters, so well. 

How do I thank her?  There are many ways that I can do it but I chose what I believe to be the best one. It is really very simple. I started it initially when I started doing my walks to make sure that I was protected against falling. What I do every time is hold her hand when we go out together. That is generally not something that long-married people do these days. However, I'm going to do so from now to forever while we are both still together. I can't think of anything better than what we shall be doing indefinitely while we are both alive and well. It is the way that we will show everyone that the two of us are together as one, supporting each other so positively. 

Thank you Marsha for doing everything in your life to help bring back mine.  You have done it so very well!