Since the last blog, May 22nd, there have been quite a few lessons learned. We have discovered where the nearest Hospital in Mesa is located, we can eat for weeks out of paper plates and…Randy dislocating his shoulder with 2 fractures will not slow us down, ok, maybe a tiny bit, but he has learned that there are truly some things that cannot be done with just having one arm. He has learned that it does humble you quite a bit to have to depend on others to dress you, cut up meat, drive (which made me feel like my mom because she always drove since riding with my dad driving scared us to death), and some other things which I will not write about right now. All of this to say, both of us have had to repeat several different times, “for better or for worse” “in sickness and in health” to remind ourselves that marriage isn’t just about fun and games, which of course, we would like to think. There have been times this past 8 days which I had to remember that love is a choice, not a feeling, as some of the feelings which I was having certainly was not one of love (like all the multiple times he had to wake me up to go get meds or help him up or down). It is these times which we want to remember that we did indeed repeat in front of God and a preacher, words of love and affirmation, declaring our love “till death do us part”. Yes, there have been maybe one, ok, ok, maybe 2, no 3, ok, maybe 4 times these past 8 days, 7 hours and 36 minutes which tested my sincerity of those words. In the scheme of things, we both know that this temporary set back of having only one arm for the next 4-6 weeks is certainly nothing compared to what others have to deal with. And that is good for us to remember, that sometimes things like this make us more aware of what some experience on a permanent basis.
Because we have had to postpone our trip to Italy until further notice, we have to think that sometimes, things like this happen for our good. To not look at it as a negative, but see it for what it might be. God’s Hand of protection over us. As we sat last night watching the news and saw that Italy is now on the list of places which they are warning Americans not to visit until further notice, we both looked at each other and began to consider that, as we both pray and ask God to lead and guide us according to His will and timing, maybe Randy’s accident was something that was meant for our good and protection. Wen we discussed this last night, he looked at me and said, “well, I wonder why it had to be me and not you that dislocated their shoulder”? I’m sure it was the meds speaking and not really him. Life sometimes throws us certain little bends in the road which, even though we would never choos to have them, end up teaching us that even though “our ways are not Gods ways”, those bends seem to have lessons in them. Lessons, which, if we accept and not fight them, bring us closer to Him in our walk of faith.
Randy has had to learn to sit back and accept that he has had to humble himself to let me do things for him. I have had to learn that every day cannot be all fun and games. We have both learned that there can be laughter even on the bad days. We both were wanting something sweet, so we headed to Paradise Bakery, which is right around the corner. Randy gave me his order of 2 sugar cookies and an iced tea. I returned to the car with just cookies in a bag. When he ask me where the tea was, I had to tell him that I just could not pay $2.50 for iced tea when I knew I could get it at McDonald’s around the corner for $1. He looked at me and said,”oh my gosh, you are turning into me”. He was right, the old me would have never thought anything about paying $2.50 for tea and would have just bought it to keep from going to another place, but this new retired me, just could not bring herself to pay that much. You have to understand that I always have tea made and either cookies, pies or cake made, but since our dishes, linens and boxes of all of our stuff will not be delivered until this Friday, we have not baked anything since our stove and fridge was just delivered a few days ago. But because of the accident to his arm, the pod which had at least our furniture in it was delivered. Jodi and I hauled one of the beds inside, some chairs and a table so Randy didn’t have to sit in a lawn chair. We also knew that he would never be able to get up or down off the air mattress which we had been sleeping on. So lessons which I have learned since his accident are:
1. I can muster myself around Hom Depot and Lowes and actually learned to saw baseboards in half, load them through the the sun roof of our car.
2. I can paint rooms, remove kitchen tile and unload furniture like a pro.
3. We can live without cable TV, HGTV and water in the kitchen.
4. I have learned that people in pain have a much better disposition after you give them pain meds.
5. That to be woke up several times a night is better on young moms than grouchy old ladies like myself.
Life lessons come in all shapes and sizes. Maybe by the next lessons to be learned his shoulder will have healed and we at least have homemade cookies baked and tea in the fridge. That will make it all better, I’m sure.