Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: CAMP (08/18/22)
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TITLE: I Love You - With a Passion | Previous Challenge Entry
By Judith Gayle Smith-Owens Vitouswykegardinerclark
08/21/22 -
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Surrounded by bears, timberwolves, predatory cats, and a rolling-eyes rhinoceros - I camp in my comfy, oversized messy bed, filled with a veritable zoo.
It has been an escape - a place to hide, to pretend I'm not here emotionally, but my heart screams silently. I am a wreck. My beloved hubby died last week. When I last saw him, I was wearing an Eeyore shirt and carrying a stuffed sad-eyed heartbroken Eeyore.
I had pulled my sister in her wheelchair with my power chair - "choo-choo training." She lost her balance, fell, and dislocated her shoulder. Bob found out because of Eeyore's desperately saddened eyes - and mine.
He told me that he had never been as happy as he was with me. Bob again apologized for dying before me. He tried to convince me he was about to die - being mentally and physically depressed. I stuck like flypaper to his side.
Bob lost his blessed 20-20 vision in his right eye due to a stroke in his eye on the first day of the new year. The start of a very rough life change. He had a strangulated fatty hernia - went to ER four times. He was rejected from surgery because he was not "emergent enough" - his doctor saw him a day later and rushed to remove the hernia the next day. What terrible pain Bob suffered.
He camped out in his recliner - almost always fighting dragons in his sleep. I watched him throwing punches, being in a sound-asleep boxing match. I pitched my tent in my recliner beside him to ensure he still breathed.
He had survived four major heart attacks, one minor (the minor doesn't require surgery), Prostate Cancer slipping out of remission and sending little tendrils to other organs. He was on oxygen full-time. I had to keep reminding him to use it. Our kitten got into trouble for biting into the hose.
Loving Bob was a full-time occupation. When I first met him, he was with a darling apricot poodle. I exclaimed over "Rowdy" - a friendship blossomed immediately.
Bob was the first person I met at our assisted living facility. I prayed someday I would find someone to love me as Bob and Rowdy loved and trusted each other. Rowdy had made it to seventeen years young, and our Lord impressed upon my heart that if Rowdy passed, Bob would break. Rowdy died in our arms, our precious baby sighed his last breath. He lived to be nineteen. Thank you, Lord.
I became the focus of Bob's life. We loved God and Jesus - and my wonderful hubby loved and spoiled my childlike sister unabashedly.
Bob was always kissing and flirting - treating me like his queen. Without makeup, my hair uncontrollable - he pronounced me ravishing.
His only fault was he didn't care for my stories - saying I was too wordy. I haven't written more than two stories in the past two years.
Bob was delusional and experiencing hallucinations. Heroic actions by his Med Tech - who saved his life at least eight times in the past few months, convinced him he needed to go to the hospital. He disliked hospitals - intensely. The doctors found the creatinine level in his kidneys was producing unusual symptoms. He had Stenosis in his left heart valve.
They took Bob to a rehabilitation facility after several days in the observation room in the hospital. He was too weak to return to our facility - requiring much more care than we could offer. He lost hope.
Physical and occupational therapy was too exhausting for him. I was a cheerleader just for him. I was stupidly taking his last breath away.
I saw him the next day. He was no longer inhabiting his tortured body after suffering his sixth heart attack that morning. He was shudderingly cold, and I held his hand between my hands - trying to warm him.
And so, I camp amongst all our stuffed animal memories, keeping a very unheroic face to myself. But my friends find me and try to release me from my self-imposed tent.
I look to the brilliant stars because he is now home with our Precious Lord.
I love you too, Bob - with a passion for God and each other.
true story
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I too lost my husband and I understand the searing pain and that no one but our merciful God can soothe that pain. But I stand with you, and hope many others will too- not as Job’s friends did, but just to stand with you. Jesus isâ¤ï¸.