Being alone and sick makes me miss him terribly

I’m sick. A 'gift' from someone on one of my flights home, this cold has knocked me flat on my ass. I’ve tested negative for COVID-19 but, ultimately, cold or COVID, the recovery process is the same: rest, fluids, boxes of Kleenex, emergency chocolate, meds to sleep through the night. And solitary confinement which, being the sole occupant of my house, is pretty easy to accomplish. 

I’m a crappy patient. The worst. I’m like a bear with a sore paw. The best thing you can do for me when I’m sick is leave me alone. Hell, the best thing you can do for you is leave me alone. 

When My Favourite Husband (MFH) was alive and I was sick with a cold or flu, he would periodically peek into the bedroom, feast his eyes on the lump of covers on the bed (with two feet sticking out), and tentatively ask: “Babe, are you OK in there?” Now, MFH was a large man — tall, heavy set, imposing, with an air of fearlessness. But he knew that when asked that question, he should be properly braced for the impending growl, the most ineloquent answer that his wife could roar: “Yes, LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Hell, I even scared myself sometimes and that was before looking in a mirror.

I’d emerge from time to time to use the bathroom, and forage the kitchen for soda crackers, water and ginger ale. But staying out of my cave made me growlier. Walking by the living room, on the way back to the bedroom, with MFH and his wonderful sunshiny smile and his kind, concerned eyes looking at me, saying, “Honey, let me know if you need anything at all,” or “I love you," or “You look beautiful," (the last one a blatant lie just to see if I was listening) ... all of which made this grizzly howl, mutter and slam the bedroom door. I can still hear the laughter he would never fail to properly muffle drift underneath that door as I went back into temporary hibernation.

Eventually, when I was better or pissed off enough at being sick that I could drag myself out of bed, I’d emerge, a tamer version of the bear but still a bear. 

MFH would softly cozy up to me, put an arm around my waist and, if he wasn’t 'bitten' with words or a laser beam glare, try his luck with a kiss on the top of my head and words of love, such as “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” or “ Thank God, you’re out of bed because I’m starving and now you can cook for me” — the latter which generally made me smile and giggle a little because he was a way better cook than I will ever be and we both knew it.

I don’t know why I’m such a crap sick person. I’m stubborn, independent and being sick forces me to slow down. I can't control my illness and it has to run its course. And, in the last few years of his life, when the entire household fell on my shoulders because of MFH's illness, I didn’t have time to get sick. He was sick — life-threateningly sick — and depended on me, so being sick wasn’t a luxury I could afford.

MFH was a way better sick person. He would ask for help if required, rarely complained about anything, and never growled or roared at me. And he was like that for all our marriage, even before the many hospital visits, even before the dialysis. He took any illness in stride, confident externally even if he was shaken on the inside. I envied that. I loved that. I hated that.

To my knowledge, he never hid anything he was dealing with and we talked about what his body was going through, how he was responding to treatments. And he was calm, collected when making decisions about his healthcare, advocating to have knowledge of what was happening to him and discussing his course of treatment with his doctors and nurses. And no matter what hurt, what ached, he never complained. He asked for what he needed; asked for help. But not because he could, because he couldn’t.

So as I sit here in my flannel pyjamas, hair looking like a punk rock relic, Kleenex prepared to catch my nasal drips and Fisherman’s Friend on standby to ease my coughing, I think about the fact that the whole three days I’ve been flat on my butt in bed, burrowed deep in my cocoon, there’s been no one to roar at. No one at whom I yell: “I don’t need anything!” No one to laugh at me. No one to cajole a smile or a giggle out of me.

I’ll never be a good sick person but I’m grateful to have been married to one. 

God, I miss that man.

❤️