Loose ends

"We are not as divided as our politics suggest." We have been avoiding election coverage for most of this evening. I figured we had enough stress in this house as it is without adding vote counting to it. Until recently, Rich has been playing Borderlands 2 while I've been hemming sleeves.

I did reach out to Catherine, though, to see if she had time to help me with my over gown for this weekend. The hem alone is probably 120" of blue wool and 80" into that I might just collapse. Death by wool. Catherine enthusiastically offered to help and I decided to drop off the dress tonight so she could work on it at her leisure.

I was going to walk as it's only around the corner but it's cold and wet outside. I pulled the van up into the driveway and the headlights cast upon their Romney/Ryan yard sign. They greeted me at the door and I stepped into the living room to give Catherine the run down on what I needed. As we discussed hems and bias cuts, the TV was quietly murmuring poll results.

We talked about the waits to vote today and how their location across the street put them in a different polling location lately. Catherine mentioned they had four votes in their house now, with the boys being grown. Donal added with a smirk that not all those votes were unanimous, though. I told them it is the duty of many a child to cancel our their parent's vote on occasion.

And then it was time to head back home so I could finish some hemming of my own. I thanked Cathy for her help and she reminisced about scrambling to finish her own garb for her and Donal's investiture 25 years ago. It seems fitting (no pun intended) to have her help for this investiture.

As I stepped out onto their porch, I dodged the Don't Tread On Me flag that was paired with the stars and stripes. Cathy cheerfully pulled down one flag to roll it up out of the rain. As I got in the drivers seat and looked back, Donal was waving the other flag with both arms like a one person rally on his front stoop, rain droplets flying across the lawn like fireworks. It looked fun and a bit ludicrous.

There has been so much vitriol on TV and Facebook lately, it's easy to think that everyone has gone insane. Many people can't wait for all this to go away. I get that. I cringe at conflict like a lot of other folks. But there is a lot more that unites us than divides us.

Tonight, it's 120" of wool, but it represents much more.

The power of prayer

Rich got mad the other day because the pharmacist said she would pray for him. I understand where they're both coming from. One is not used to being prayed for in the course of a sales transaction. She was just trying to be nice. I can think of far more unhelpful things she could have said. But it frustrated Rich.

Granted, this was the day before we drove up to see Dr. Hanna and Dr. Sardi and Rich was under a lot of stress. He had worked himself into a fret over the assumption that because Dr. Sugarbaker couldn't do Rich's surgery (BECAUSE HE'S 80!), that no surgeon would help him. He was feeling a little hopeless already, so in his mind, prayer was what people did when there was no other recourse.

After the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007, Harry wrote "Prayer does not always result in the outcome you want, but it always results in the strength to deal with the outcome you get." (Yes, I dug that up out of the ILLiad-L archives.) Somehow over the years, I paraphrased that into "we pray not to get what we want, but to better deal with not getting what we want."

I've always found it strange if people ask if it's okay for them to pray for me. It's not like they expect me to come to their house and participate. It does me absolutely no harm.

Rich told me the other day that he had figured out something. He said that he didn't necessarily need all the well wishes - the cards or the prayers or the ribbons. He said he just needs me. It reminds me of my father saying he didn't need to talk to anyone about being depressed because he had Mom to talk to. No one asked if perhaps then Mom needed someone to talk to about Dad being depressed.

This whole cancer situation is a giant pyramid scheme. Rich only needs me. But I need approximately a million people's support in order to be there for him. Julie commented today that caring for someone else is a full time job with a lot of overtime and I believe it. I'm happy to do that for Rich. But any and all help is appreciated.

So pray away! Light a candle, talk to God directly, lie in the grass and visualize all the green slime leaving Rich's belly leaving behind nothing but goodness and light. Add three more smiles to your day in our honor. Pay for someone's Starbucks. Send us a postcard. Wear slime green and orange on Monday and post your picture to Facebook. Make signs like they do for runners in marathons.

When we told the barony that Rich had cancer and we would need to go to Baltimore for surgery, I explained that we don't go to church but chose to participate in the SCA instead. This medieval motley crew is our support network and it was time to break out the casserole dishes and rally around our banner. But I also extend that to each of you reading these words. You're our posse and were it possible we would all have team jerseys and a fight song.

Perhaps your fight song comes out of the hymnal. I'm fine with that. Just don't be quiet about any of it. You all are the foundation of the structure holding us up, so paint your faces and get loud. Praise be.

There is no "i" in cancer

We were heading to whatever meal is at 2:30pm (it was after lunch but before dinner but we hadn't eaten in hours). Ian had just finished losing his mind over the indignity of having to wear shoes bring shoes with us out of the house. And Megan called to talk to me about the Care Calendar she's setting up. We had planned on talking on the phone about it and it should have been fine. But as she went over the various options within the calendar (yard work, housekeeping, food, child care, transportation), I felt my stomach getting icky. We continued the conversation as I ordered my lunch/dinner (yeah, I was one of those assholes on their phone) and finished up shortly after sitting at the table. I hung up and Rich and I just looked at each other across the table, both of us feeling kind of icky.

Mind you, Megan did nothing wrong. On the contrary, she has been doing all kinds of things right. She's volunteered to be the consigliere for this operation through the calendar app so that I don't have to field a million calls and texts. The real issue was that she was asking me what help we were going to need, both in Baltimore and once we get home. We aren't very good at asking for help.

We come by it honestly, as neither of our parents are particularly adept at asking for help. Mom had a mastectomy and reconstruction with only Daddy to help her for the most part. The idea of having a neighbor mow my parents' lawn or do their dishes is laughable on a number of levels. Megan was asking if we should have "backup" caregivers for Ian to assist Rich's folks and my first thought was they themselves would have to be hospitalized before they would call someone 45 minutes away and ask them to come watch our kid, regardless of if that person is an approved kid watcher.

So it's hard. Being positive in the face of cancer is way easier than considering the idea of someone else taking out my trash or walking my dogs. Megan talked about the help we would need once we're home and I thought, "but we'll be home then. We can just do our thing." Except that Rich will have a 27" seam down the middle of him and we'll have a busy three year old and I'll have some sort of work thing I'll have to do at some point. So maybe taking one or two things off our plate might help a little.

It all just seems like a lot of little things. But at the same time, if a lot of little things are divided up amongst a lot of people, it's far better than one person (me) trying to do them all.

So I'm hereby promising to ask for help. Megan is coordinating an entire web site structured for that very purpose. I will let everyone know what you can do to ease our load, regardless of if you're in Virginia, Maryland or Hong Kong. And let me be the first to say thank you for all you've done already and what you will do. We are all on Team Stryker and it is a pretty kick ass team.