He picks up the trash can full of soaked bandages and carries it out of the room to be emptied while the nurse finishes bandaging her swollen legs. After the nurse leaves, he nearly tears apart the living room looking for a book she can't find but knows is there somewhere.
I like this man, this rotund farmer, always wearing a plaid shirt under denim overalls. He's old enough to be retired, but a farmer's work is never done. (For the work of a farmer runs too deep in his veins to ever be done.) He's a kind man with gentle eyes, toothless, attentive, and always ready with a wise-crack.
I watch him during my visit to their home, but don't put the full picture together until later, when paperwork and assessments aren't distracting me.
We know her well. She has been our patient for several months. I first met her in the hospital, too tired or weak to even roll over in bed. Then she came as an outpatient, and we helped get her back on her feet and walking again. But no sooner had we discharged her than she was back in the hospital after a heart attack. Now too weak to get out of the house, we have been seeing her at home. After yet another hospital stay recently, I was back at her house to evaluate her again.
Her health is failing. Her kidneys are shutting down. Her heart barely pumps. The fluid backs up in her legs, and when they are stretched to the max, the fluid seeps out through her skin. The Parkinson's has taken away her facial expressions and makes walking even a few steps labored and hard.
As she and I chat while I fill out paperwork, her husband the farmer silently walks into the room and hands her the pills she is supposed to take now.
She didn't ask him to. He just did. He knew it was time for her to take her medicine.
My presence encroaches on her afternoon nap time, and while she would love to sit and visit, her eyes are barely staying open. The Parkinson's is to blame for this mandatory daily sleep.
He patiently helps her to her feet. It takes several attempts, and she is frustrated that she can't even stand. But he is patient, encouraging, and on the third try he hoists her up.
She is tall, even taller than he. But he must support her so she doesn't fall backward into her chair.
She wants to walk to the bedroom, but we have waited too long. Her body is too tired. So he pushes her in a wheeled desk chair to the bed. He again helps her to stand. He holds her close and tight as together they turn so she can sit on the bed.
And this is the image I remember: Aged farmer, with strong, healthy, and sturdy body holding close his broken wife, weak and tired and frail. He holds her up with silent love, the hands of a servant doing for her what she cannot do for herself.
I think of the marraige vows they spoke many years ago, in sickness and health 'til death do us part. And I wonder at the mystery of this. They did not plan on these trials and illnesses ravaging her body. Yet he takes care of her, as a mother would her child, without once complaining about the hand that was delt them.
I want to serve like this. Strong and silent. Never complaining, always encouraging. Always patient. Always aware. Silent, but present.
