Earlier this year, Gary (my husband), who rarely gets sick, woke up one morning complaining of pain in his side. Being a trooper, he decided to “fight through it” and go to work. He made it one stop on Metro before calling and saying he needed to come home.
He went to the doctor later that day, was given a prescription and told if he wasn't feeling markedly better the next day to go to the hospital for x-rays. He took the medication, crashed and that was the end of that day.
The next morning he “iffy,” but well enough, he thought, to go to work. This time he managed to get all the way to his office. But, after half a day I got “the call” saying he needed to go to the hospital. Hearing that from my husband, who is my rock, made my blood run cold.Off we went to the hospital at full tilt.
Several hours in the emergency room accompanied by “tests” – blood, urine, CAT scan, x-rays, etc. – revealed that Gary had an infected kidney stone.
As if that weren't disturbing enough for me, the doctors said that the best course of action would be to keep him overnight in the hospital for monitoring.
The hospital is located about five miles from our house. The drive home that evening was one of the longest trips I've ever made.
When I got in the front door, the silence was absolutely overwhelming. Hovering between total exhaustion and all-out panic, all I could do was cry. I called my parents and cried to them, then I called a girlfriend and cried to her. At some point, I couldn't cry any more nor could I keep my gal pal on the phone all night so I wrapped up the conversation.
But I was too wound up to sleep. So I paced and took in my surroundings. I saw a decent-sized HD television; lots of clothing, jewelry and other accessories; two cars and a motorcycle; two computers; a stereo; LOTS of books and more. In short, stuff, stuff everywhere.
And I had an epiphany.
None of our “things” meant anything to me if I wasn't sharing them with Gary. If I didn't have him, I didn’t need the rest of it. I was fully prepared to walk away from all of it.The next morning, when I spoke to Gary, I told him as much. “I don’t care about anything we own, Dear, all that matters is you. Our stuff is so unimportant without you to share it with that, in fact, I could get rid of it all,” I said.
Sick as he was, Gary still had some mental faculties about him…
His reply, “Please don’t!”
Written for The Writers’ Post weekly blog hop #17. Theme: “Walking Away”
