Also, Love (Part 10)

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BY PETER SOLIS NERY
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Wednesday, February 21, 2018
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R WAS limping when I got back home in America. He probably fell while I was away. But he wouldn’t admit to it. He said he did not, could not, remember. Perhaps he was drunk, again. With a little too much to drink, he could have fallen from the stairs. But he refused to go to the hospital — he was stubborn and proved to be difficult. He was fully aware of his alcohol addiction and the things they would do to him in the hospital if he got admitted.

R ate like a bird, but he was a fish in wine. Chardonnay was his drink of choice. He could, and did, drink gallons a day. A gallon is 3.8 liters. (I finally got proficient in measurement conversion. But in my mind, I still scream, “Metric, metric, metric system!”)

Of course, I could never be blamed for not educating him about alcohol addiction. I’m a nurse, and health teaching is second nature to me. We even argued about it. It was the biggest argument we had in all our married life. But considering that he was already 60 years old, and with his set values when I met him, I kept a distance.

“Sure, you’ll extend my life for how many — five years? — but, if you are just going to make it miserable because I can’t have my wine, I would rather keep my drinking and die two years sooner. I’ll happily die with my wine. I don’t intend to die sober!”

And with sincerity, he would say, “I love you. But just like Hiligaynon, which came to your life first, and way ahead of me, wine came to me first, before you came along.”

Others say I didn’t love R enough. Or, I only loved him conveniently — because I just let him be the drunkard that he was.

But what is love really?

Is it love to deny him what he loves most? Is it love to lord it over him, and forbid him his wine? Disregard his wishes? Violate his individual right? Is it love for me to pick a fight about his drinking? And nag him morning, noon, and nighttime like Filipina wives do to their husbands in the Philippines?

Isn’t it also love that I accepted him whole and entire? Took him for all that he was — with his faults and flaws, shortcomings and weaknesses, demons and imperfections?

It was I who lived with my husband. I, alone, knew how everything really was. Those who never witnessed our love, those who never shared a single day with us, cannot judge us.

For the whole month of November, I spoon-fed him like a baby. I assisted him to the bathroom, at first. Then later, I brought a bedside commode near him. He liked to stay in his La-Z-Boy recliner. I gave him sponge baths. I washed his behind, and wiped his ass clean. I sang him lullabies to put him to sleep.

When sleep eluded him because of the pain that made him restless, I kept a vigil. I sat beside him, and watched operas on DVD. I had this idea that foreign language sang in bel canto will put him to sleep.

Sure enough, we watched at least twenty-three operas — including the fifteen-and-a-half hours of Der Ring Des Nibelungen in one marathon viewing. But we survived November. And I even brought him to his doctor’s appointments, x-ray tests, CT scans, MRI and PET scans. So, no one, even just jokingly, can really accuse me of killing my husband…with operas!

On December 1, his primary doctor said that the PET scan result revealed that his right lung was collapsed. Collapsed as in caved in? Passed out? Fell down? R already had difficulty breathing at that time. But he remained very stubborn. He continued to resist going to the hospital.

I cupped his face and asked him to look at me in the eye. And with all the seriousness and sternness that I could muster, I told him, “RTG, stop refusing. We need to go to the hospital.”

I explained to him, “If it’s just pain and broken bones, I will let you to stay in the house. I can deal with those. But, if you can no longer breathe, I cannot do anything. We don’t even have oxygen tanks in the house. And I don’t want you to die in my arms, with me totally helpless and unable to do anything. I am a nurse! I love you. And I cannot forgive myself, if I let you die in my care, when you have a good chance to be saved in a hospital!”

And he cried like a baby, and said, “Okay. But only because I don’t want you to be angry with me.” (To be continued/PN)
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