Mobility.

I hope that I never take it for granted again. It took somewhere between ten and twenty minutes to get him from his side of the bed out to the car for church. He nearly passed out at the foot of our bed. I took one tall stool and set it out in the hall, and another halfway from there to the front door, in case he needed to sit down and rest, but he didn’t need either of them. I had to tuck his right foot into the car (I remember several years ago, when I needed both hands to lift my left leg into the car, so it was easy to be patient with the process) and help him wrangle the buckle on the seat belt. He said he was going to pass out, on the drive to church, and I think he might have, because I looked over at a stoplight and his eyelids were open, but I don’t think anyone was home for a moment or two.

He got out of the car under his own power, and a nice youngish man helped him get up the sidewalk, into the building, and onto the couch in the foyer. By that time, they were passing the sacrament, and I was really irreverent in responding to the boys’ earlier, where-are-you-is-he-OK texts, to let them know we were out in the foyer and would need help getting into the chapel when the ordinance was over and we were free to enter.

I didn’t knit a stitch. The speakers were excellent. After the meeting, I handed Bishop our tithing envelope, grinning hugely because his talk had been on the principle of tithing; he handed me the notarized affidavit of heirship, one of the two we need. The boys took Beloved home and stayed with him until I finished my responsibilities in Primary and picked up the prescription I forgot on Saturday.

I also found out what happened to the sheepie glass. One of the new daughters had been washing it, and it came apart in her hand. I reassured her that I hadn’t paid more than $1.50 for it at World Market, and that it was far from being a family heirloom, and that I was glad she wasn’t hurt, and that obviously it had gotten stressed at some time in the past or it wouldn’t have done what it did. No harm done, and mystery solved.

I tackled the fridge late last night. I was reasonably sure that there was a partial package of cream cheese in there (there was not; it might be in the outside fridge), and we have a new sleeve of bagels. I was positive that there were containers in the inside fridge whose contents were going feral. I was not far wrong, and the bag of trash is in the kitchen sink, waiting for me to take it outside.

I got the bed stripped and remade, the sheets put through multiple wash cycles, and all of the blood out. Same for my old quilt. Then I wrangled the flannel sheets onto the bed and made a batch of brownies to take to the Primary teacher training meeting. I was torn between attending the meeting like a good first counselor, and just taking over a hot pan of brownies and staying home with Beloved. He told me that several people had expressed an interest in wanting to come see him. I didn’t want them to wear him out.

I ended up going to the meeting, and I don’t regret it. I stayed a little, afterward, and visited with people, and was able to speak freely about how beautiful and wonderful and messy this all is. Real life is messy. I learned that a long time ago, and this is just another reminder. Most of the brownies got eaten last night, and I came home with a couple of peppermint sugar cookies drizzled in chocolate, one of which I ate last night, the other of which is in imminent danger.

It is nearly 8:00a.m. on our anniversary. We were both awake around 4:00. Beloved had the dry heaves, his first experience of that and not one he cares to repeat. I got him some OJ, and it stayed down. We both went back to sleep. When he sits up on the edge of the bed, fluid weeps out of the soles of his feet. When I had hepatitis all those years ago, my skin itched like fury, but it seems as if he is being spared that, for which I am grateful. The hospice people will be here in a couple of hours, and one of the dear young sisters at the meeting last night says that if the hospice people need the dining room cleaned out today, her husband gets off work at 3:00 and can bring a bunch of his Marine buddies and get it done in no time.

(Mmm. Marines. Firemen, squared.)

I have no idea what adventures this day will hold, but it already qualifies as the least-boring anniversary, ever.