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I really can’t describe the feeling of disappointment I felt this morning, when I pulled into my mother’s driveway and saw that her car was gone. I sat there for a minute, car idling until I remembered what time it was. It was only 8:30 am and I realized that my  76-year-old mother was at yoga, or bobbing around in the pool with her gang of Barbara’s, she being one of the three of them. There are other ladies who workout in the pool, often at the same time as she, Gloria’s and Ruth’s. Pleasant 60 and 70-somethings who bounce around to the strains of Fergie and Lady Gaga, while discussing last nights elimination on Dancing with the Stars and the happenings around town and in their families. My mother has become quite dedicated to her workouts, going faithfully three to four times a week. This coming from a woman who once told a physical therapist that she wasn’t opposed to exercise “as long as it doesn’t make me sweat.”

I knew she wouldn’t be home for a while, so, I turned the car around and left, feeling quite sorry for myself. I had driven to her house to await the results of a chest x-ray, ordered by my PCP after she listened to my raspy lungs. By the way, if someone says, “Ohhh, that’s not good” when they have a stethoscope in their ears, and on your chest, it’s not usually a good thing. Having been sick with the flu for the better part of the week, I have not had much of an appetite, but I had a sudden hankering for my mothers scrambled eggs. Well, not just the eggs. I was looking for the whole “Mom experience,” I might be a mom and a grandmother myself, but I don’t think anyone is ever too old to be mothered. I had already seen in my mind’s eye that she would look up happily as I came in the door, one of the few houses that I don’t have to knock. She would smile and say “why, Sue! What are you doing here so early?” then not waiting for me to reply, she would continue,  “I was just making some scrambled eggs and I’ve made too much, why don’t you sit here and eat with me? Would you like coffee? How about some orange juice?” The whole time she is talking, she would be pouring coffee, popping bread in the toaster and serving up a generous portion of scrambled eggs with the efficiency of a waitress, which she actually was, before she went to nursing school. They would be light and fluffy with cheese and bacon and chives in them. She would butter the toast (seriously!) and slice it like a triangle because it tastes better that way. A little dish of fruit would appear, strawberries and grapes and bananas, “just cut up this morning.” Blowing on the eggs, I would tell her why I was out and about so early, while she sat across from me, eggless, with a second cup of coffee instead. Listening while I talked, she would notice that my coffee was gone, and she would replace it while we moved on to other matters, things that made me angry, small details about my children and granddaughter, the happenings on Survivor last night and what my sisters were up to. The whole thing would take less than an hour, at some point I would have received the results of my x-ray by phone and would leave to pick up my prescription. I would have gone home with a full belly and a big head, compliments having been tossed at me like rice at a wedding. This was the “Mom experience” I was hoping for. Who but your mother, wants to hear a story with you as the hero? Who else actually loves to hear you brag? Who else could be so undoubtedly in your corner when you are wronged and yet still caution you to not lose your temper and be too brash? Moms feed you physically, emotionally and spiritually. You strut out of their house, fluffed and puffed, as confident as a two-year old that you are loved.

Sadly, with out my “mom experience” to feed me, I turned the car to McDonald’s for hot cakes, a disappointing second but the only thing that seemed about as comforting as her scrambled eggs. I felt sorry for myself for only a minute, as I remembered how many of my friends, and my husband, who have lost their mothers, my mother herself lost hers when she was 13. I am grateful for our texts and visits, our lunches out and for an occasional breakfast at her house. I am thankful for her and for the example she has set for my sisters and me, and also, for her scrambled eggs.

“Hi Noni!” she says, as she creeps into our dark room, dragging her blanket, and Ted, her huge, floppy teddy bear. “Hi Bean” I mumble as she climbs into bed with me. Ahhh, I think, time blurring the edges of the reality of “sleeping” with a four-year old. 15 minutes pass, with tiny dagger like knees in my back, coughing in my ear, sneezing in my face and the use of my hair as a convenient tissue. The cat, emboldened by the predawn stirrings and wanting her morning treat, enters the room meowing, then goes in for the kill, circling our heads, purring and kneading as she goes. “Good morning, Bean”, I finally say, an admission of defeat. I hear her smile in the dark “Good morning Noni!” she chortles, happy as only a child can be before sunrise. We push the covers off and feel our way through the darkness together, Bean, the cat and me.

Today is day number four that I have woken up sick. I have the flu with constant body aches, fever, cough and a curiously stuffy but still running nose. At this point, I am as drained mentally as I am physically. Case in point, to even figure out the days I have been sick took about 3 minutes, during which time, I caught myself staring into space, chewing my fingernails and sneaking peeks at the Today show until I gave myself a mental slap in the face. Suffice it to say, I am not feeling very sharp and this is probably not the best time to put my thoughts out there. It may very well be the blogging  equivalent of a drunken selfie, posted on social media in one brash move, “f*$# it” being the last thought before sending it off. As mentally dull as I have been recently, most of my days having been spent prostrate on the couch, unable even to read, I have had a hard time mustering the wherewithal to blog. Some of the problem is lack of energy, mental and physical, but mostly it is from lack of inspiration which for me, comes with exercise or driving, most often with music blaring. But, once in a while, something touches me out of the blue and I must write it down so that I can process it, or else it will be shuffled back into the dark recesses of my mind. And so it was last night, with “the egg,”

One day, about 20 years ago, my husband, jokingly pretended to crack an “egg” on our than five-year old daughters noggin. He knocked gently using his knuckles three times, then with his fingers splayed out, simulated what it might feel like if yolk was dripping down her head. He probably thought that she would jump up and scream, first because she thought it was real and then with the indignation of having been fooled. Instead she stood there while the finger yolks spread down over her hair. “Do it again!” she demanded. He did, several times until, with a rush of generosity, she said “do it to Mama!” He did, and at our requests and sometimes spontaneously, he’s been doing the egg ever since.

Last night, feverish and restless and tired of sitting upright, I folded over and put my head on the middle couch cushion for a minute, craving my mothers touch. I wished for a cool hand on my forehead and to hear her to say, “well, that’s it, you aren’t going to school tomorrow.” Instead, I got the egg. Cool and familiar, comfortable and soothing, a small gesture, that says, “I’m here.” It’s the little things that hold us together sometimes, long-standing jokes and stories retold, preferences tolerated and dislikes endured. Confidences shared and someone who always has your back. Or, your head with their hand on it, letting you know they love you.

Today is Easter. A day of hope and joy, family and fun. Christians will be reminded of the ultimate sacrifice, a life surrendered and reborn. Children will be hyped up on sugar and the novelty of the day, and families will come together for a lunch or dinner.  Children in their Easter outfits with chocolate stains already on the sleeve, adults, laughing, chatting, some drinking and bickering, most happy to get together, and a few even happier when it is time to head home.

But not us. This year, with four fifths of my immediate family under the weather and the only healthy one having been diagnosed less than a week ago with strep throat, we are not in a celebratory mood. My 19-year-old son slept for 13 hours straight the night before last, and trudging from his bedroom at 1 pm declared,  “I am dying inside” before collapsing on the couch and curling up into a ball. The last time this kid was this sick, he was scheduled to leave for Europe on a school trip. With a temp of 102 the day before they were to depart, I wondered if he should go, until I remembered that I could have finished paying my car off with the amount that we paid for this first -world kid experience, so I sent him off with Tamiflu, tissues, Ibuprofen and prayers. He was fine.

With so many of us sick at once, it hit me how differently we handle it. Bean, at four, for example refuses to admit defeat. She will not talk about her symptoms and will not let anyone else discuss it. “I don’t want to talk about it!” she almost shouts when queried about her belly or her throat. She does the same thing when she has skinned a knee. She covers it with her hand and will not look at, or let anyone else inspect it. She prefers to carry on as if nothing has happened. “Dress up and show up” describes her little soldier like thinking. Her mother just sent me a picture of her that explains her well.  She is dressed in her Easter dress, a purple swirly affair, with tights and “fancy shoes” which are white patent leather with a little heel. She loves them. The only problem is, she has been vomiting and running to the bathroom all morning. This is not the most practical outfit, but it makes her feel a little better. She is of the Ma Ingalls, “lest said, sooner mended” mentality. So far, this mind-set has served her well.

Her mother, my oldest, is like this as well. An active, courageous child with a love of horses, she has suffered many injuries in her quarter century on the planet. Sports and riding have left her with multiple surgeries, broken bones and several avulsions under her belt. Undaunted, she continues her course without complaint or pause. Last week, she worked two twelve-hour shifts with a fever and sore throat, waited until her day off to be diagnosed with strep throat, and not missing a beat or a day of work, never mentioned it again. She does not expect special treatment or sympathy when she is ill or wounded and has little time or patience with histrionics, which is a great lead in for our next patient.

Our patriarch, Tiny, is tough as nails, most of the time. This man, has put six stitches in his own hand (easy, peasy…boil thread and needle, drink lots of alcohol, sew away), and allowed a friend to attempt to pull an infected tooth (not so easy, required more alcohol, duct tape and pliers and was ultimately not successful due to the fact that the tooth broke). Have you ever heard of Yankee ingenuity? Mainers are a tough, and resourceful bunch and if you don’t have health insurance, because you are an adult with a family, attending college, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.  Put that image aside for a moment and imagine a different person entirely. This person moans, loudly and frequently when he has a fever, he rolls around in bed and sends SOS texts, such as, and I quote, “I’m burning up!! Could you bring up the thermometer and Gatorade?” In all my years of taking temperatures (that would be 29, at least professionally), I have never seen someone relish a fever like he does. I get it. It’s the outward expression of your inward misery. It is the proof to yourself and to your wife, that you are indeed dying a slow, hot death. He is the antithesis, at least when he is sick, of the first two.

My son and I, however, are a lot alike in many ways. We take the middle and sometimes, but certainly not always, the high road on many things. In sickness, we do not deviate from this. We accept our fate, and deal with it. We try not to complain but don’t deny that we are suffering when asked. We do not whimper in our beds, and we don’t carry on as if everything is fine either. Last night, and quite possibly the rest of today, will find my son and me each on a couch, wrapped up like burritos in blankets, binging without guilt on Shameless while tossing the box of tissues or a phone charger back and forth to whichever one needs the item the most.

So, that’s it, dear reader. These are the characters in my family,  all in various stages of illness, from prodromal to convalescence. Thank you for indulging me and helping me to take my mind off my body aches. While you are enjoying your spiral ham and your chocolate bunny with your family, my family will be moaning, denying and indulging in Netflix . To each his own.

A son is wonder to his mother. A perfect and beautiful tiny man. A mother of a newborn pours all her love and attention into him, developing a solid foundation for his future. He stares into her eyes and looks for her whenever she isn’t holding him.  As a toddler, his mother claps when he walks, rejoices when he poops on the toilet, picks him up when he falls and cuddles him when he is sick. She is the first person he looks for when he skins his knee and he hides his head on her shoulder when he is afraid. As a preschooler, she prepares him for school, takes him to the park, and tries to swallow the fear that he is growing so fast as he climbs too high and rides his bike too fast. But, he runs to her at random times of the day, crashing into her knees and throwing his arms around her neck when she picks him up. He tells her that he wants to marry her when he gets big and she smiles while tears spring to her eyes.  When he goes to school, she misses him and wonders if he misses her. but hopes that he doesn’t, because she doesn’t want him to feel sad. She encourages him to invite his friends over and pretends to be annoyed when they eat all the food and break a lamp, wrestling in the living room. He lets her hug and kiss him still, but only at night and only if his friends aren’t sleeping over. By the time he is a teenager, his thoughts have turned to his friends, sports, cars and girls. His mother is there, in the periphery, hovering about, offering to make him scrambled eggs or asking if he put his uniform in the wash. She is most often noticed when she is not there, as she is testing out her new independence as he tests his. “where’s mom?” he will say to his father, when the friends are gone, or he will text,  “where are you? I’m hungry!”. She will hurry home or offer a myriad of choices over the phone, happy to be needed. She still insists on giving him a kiss when he leaves for work or school and he acquiesces, bending his head so that she can kiss the top of it. He goes to college, a baby boy in a man costume. She worries about him constantly. Is he eating enough, sleeping enough? She keeps up with him via texts and snapchat and creeps on his girlfriend on Facebook. He comes home on weekends, dumping his laundry on the floor, saying he’s hungry,  while a swirl of energy and nostalgia perfumes the air, disappearing as soon as he drives away. He marries, and his mom is careful and supportive of his wife. She defers to the wife on matters such as child rearing and her sons favorite foods because she would never ask her son to choose between them, partly because she knows she will lose and partly because she would never want her son to be feel the pain of making that choice. It is hard, and sometimes sad, but it is as it should be.

If this scenario seems depressing to young moms out there, know that it’s not. Just as you are there at every stage and for every pain, both mental and physical, you will always be there, and he will always look for you. On this, the morning after Good Friday, it makes me wonder how Jesus’s mother could stand to be there, when her son took on the sins of the world. She never left his side, she suffered as he did, watching her baby boy die on a cross. She had wiped his tears when he was a little boy and now could not, but she gave the only solace to him that she could, she was there. She never left him alone in his grief and his pain, just as we, as mothers would never leave our boys to suffer alone. You are no less important to your son  than you were when he was 5, just in a different way. You have done your job well, Mom. As he raises a family of his own, things have come full circle. It is as it should be.

#8 Keep the fights clean: we don’t do this at all, we are terrible, dirty fighters. We have thrown rings and insults, we fight bitterly and often and sometimes go to bed angry, Our disagreements once prompted my then six-year old niece to say, “you two are always either fighting or kissing”. This is very true. Some couples say they don’t argue at all. I don’t know if this is bad or good, You could say that they have less passion in their marriage but then again, they also would have a lot less heartache and probably more sleep.  Never mind this advice, I’m not fit to give it.

#7 Know each others strengths and weaknesses: This took us years and years to realize. When our daughter was a baby, I thought that things should be fair. We both worked and I felt that on our days off, he should take turns with me getting up early. We never fought more than during that bleak period of time, I really didn’t understand that he was a night owl and that as a life long early bird, it made more sense for me to get up, at least most of the time. When our son arrived six years later, we had seven years of marriage and parenthood under our belts and came up with a plan that worked for both of us. He would take the “night shift”, and I would do  the “morning shift”. Our son was sensitive as a baby and never slept well. After nursing him,  sometimes he slept, but often he needed to be walked or rocked for hours and would wake up as soon as these activities stopped. My husband was on duty until 2 am, and when the baby woke after that, I would take over. Since I was usually in bed by 9 pm, this actually felt like a suitable arrangement at the time, but writing this now, my gosh, this sounds like a miserable existence! My point is though, we figured out a way to make it work by using our strengths to our favor rather than our weaknesess against us.

#6 Have fun together: Millennials call this “date night” and that is fine and good  for them, but when we were just starting out, we had no money for date nights. I am well aware that this makes me sound old, but don’t worry, I wont launch into one of those, “when we were your age” parables. Suffice it to say that we have never really spent much money in the pursuit of merriment. Oh, we have taken family trips to amusement parks and beaches, we have gone out to eat by ourselves and to the movies and Broadway plays and museums. Sometimes though these have ended up feeling like a commandment to have fun.’ Thou shall take thy family to the beach and all will have fun, for thou art an American family.’ But one sandy bottom, two sunburned shoulders and three temper tantrums later and the whole “happy family” sham topples like a house of cards. These family pursuits of happiness have not all been failures. We have had fun too, but our favorite times together are simpler arrangements. Walks, board games or cribbage, playing softball together on our church team, jeep and four-wheeler rides,  hiking, (when he makes me feel guilty that I haven’t gone with him in years), shopping ,(when I make him feel guilty), all things that we do for our “date nights”. For me, I don’t care if we are just sitting on the couch watching Surviver, as long as he keeps making me laugh during the commercials.

#5 If at all possible, sleep in separate beds!!!  OK, this is a weird thing to say, and certainly this would not work for every couple, but I’m just going to say it anyway.  Because for us,  given that we are polar opposites in many ways, especially in our sleep habits, if we had not done this about 15 years ago, we probably  would be divorced now. This is why this works for us: I go to bed early, he goes to bed late. I have my covers tucked, his are swirled around like a hurricane hit his bed. I make my bed as soon as I am on my feet in the morning, if he makes his at all, it is a few minutes before he climbs into at night. I have a top sheet (who doesn’t?!?), he does not. I sleep with my electric blanket on from September until June, he is like a furnace and needs only one blanket. I like to have a mattress topper, he does not, “That stupid thing is too hot and soft”. I’m sure you get the picture. Sleeping apart has actually not separated us, it has brought us closer. I guess the real lesson here is, don’t be afraid to let go of what you think a couple should look like. Create your own bubble.

#4 Remember what attracted you on him in the first place: My husband is a bad boy,  I have always gone for the bad boy. They are exciting and dangerous and everything I am not. Bad boys are fun to date but a nightmare to marry. At least he was for the first several years, Still is sometimes, but although he hasn’t changed, my attitude has. For the first several years, I tried to change him and mold him to my version of the perfect husband. This created so much drama that I wondered if we could ever get through it. But, about the time that our daughter starting having problems with a bully at school, I realized the value of having a tough customer on your team. He has dealt with every tricky situation, including somehow, the bully,  and walked head on into difficult and sometimes dangerous situations to protect and to keep our family together. He also keeps things interesting, as he did when he followed a staff member at a rock concert, acting like he knew what he was doing to obtain a front row, standing room only section, a spot so close that someone in our party excitedly proclaimed that they had gotten a performers sweat on them. This may not be your souse. Your spouse might be the solid, boring one, as I am. Remember, what you liked and admired about that person and try to be thankful  that they are different from you. which brings me to…

#3 Embrace the differences: My husband and I are like night and day. He is bipolar and has ADHD. Because of this, he is spontaneous, and colorful, fun and a risk taker. But, he has so much going on in his brain that at times, he is overwhelmed and can become anxious. I am solid as a rock, but a little bland and not much of a risk taker as evidenced by the fact that I have been working at the same facility since I was 16, that’s 28 years if you are counting! He helps me to have fun and I help him to stay calm and grounded. He wrestled with the kids while I kept things on schedule. He hunted, fished, rode ATV’s, hiked and showed them wildlife, and I read and watched movies with them, went to every game, meet and event and most practices, sat in waiting rooms, filled out insurance forms and comforted the sick and injured. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes we did these thing together and because the my job requires me to work every other weekend, he was pressed into service and nicely filled my shoes as Mom, albeit, a fun one. Last night, I asked him to make me a grilled cheese, because he makes  the best, and when I was finished eating he asked me to make him a “big sandwich”, a giant deli cheese and sliced ham stuffed affair. I could have made my own grilled cheese and he could have made his own sandwich, and twenty years ago, we probably would have, reluctant to ask a favor, lest one of us be beholden to the other and unwilling to admit that we each have skills the other does not. These days though, older and wiser, we see this as a benefit, not a competition.  I never liked wrestling on the floor with a rambunctious kid and he is not really a fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

#2 On the big issues it helps to agree: We may be the Bickersons  about mundane things, but on the big issues we agree, To me, these are, politics, religion and money. well, we really don’t agree on money, because he is generous to a fault and also never in my life I have I seen someone literally lose money like he does. I’ve actually witnessed it fall to the ground, not that surprising as he does not like a wallet and instead stuffs bills in his front pocket. But, we do agree that I’m the better manager of it so usually I handle the bills and do whatever I want with it except for large ticket items. Those, we talk about. Although, it’s really not much of a discussion as the more I spend, the better he likes it. The other two issues, we agree on. He is maybe a little more zealous about politics and I am more so about religion, but we do agree and because our values mesh, we have had a solid foundation to build our marriage.

#1 Prayer (Don’t stop reading here!) This is not the part where I try to force my Christian values on you. I know that not everyone who reads this believes in the power of prayer and that’s OK. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, as my mother has been known to say. Actually, I hate that saying. Anyway, Prior to meeting my husband, I had a few relationships, that after a time,  I felt the need to pray about. Each time, I asked that if this was not the right person for me, to end it now. Four times I did this, and three times the relationship ended in a week. To some, this might seem like a coincidence or maybe that I was just acting out what I obviously felt anyway or why would I have prayed in the first place. Whatever you believe, if you find yourself at a crossroads why not throw that prayer out there? It wont hurt either way.

So, that’s it. I’m sure there are many reasons that we are still married that I have not mentioned.  Chief among them, might be stubbornness, convenience and maybe we actually love each other (I know we do). It’s a gamble for sure. The stakes are high but the payoff is higher, at least for us. Now, pardon me while I have my husband read this. I’m pretty sure I know just what he will say. “oh, that’s nice, I look like an irresponsible jerk and you look like the martyr”. We quite possibly will argue about it this afternoon. apparently,  that’s just the way we like it.

P.S. What he actually said after he read it was , “Yeah, that’s nice, it’s pretty good……..martyr”.

Thanks for reading,

Susannah Warner