The Anniversary Season: Love, Caregiving, and the Life We Never Could Predict

When I look back at all we didn't know when Geoff and I started dating, including whether we would be able to have children, whether we would remain in New Hampshire's mountains where we met, whether we would develop a shared approach to marriage and the responsibility of home ownership, all that really mattered then is that marrying Geoff would be about love and adventure and problem solving.

I recognize fully (as an English teacher for almost 30 years) that the previous sentence is long and complicated.  Just as I try to teach my students, sometimes you want your writing to reflect whatever it is you are writing about.  We are practicing periodic and cumulative sentences -- where all the details either come in the beginning and build to your independent clause, or where the main idea of your sentence comes first followed by all the details.  I'm not saying our marriage is dramatic or complicated; in the ways that matter most, it's pretty simple -- I love him, and he loves me -- however, caregiving adds a complexity to marriage that we must navigate or be lost.

We were not high school or college sweethearts when we fell in love, nor were we “babies” at 32 and 36 roughly. We had been in love before, and we knew what we wanted from a partner. So when we connected, we didn't need a lot of time to figure out we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. However, one misconception about caregiving in marriage is that the caregiver always wants to help their spouse simply because one loves the other. But the reality is not so clear. Just because I love my husband with my whole heart, sometimes his decisions piss me off. This is no different in a marriage where both partners are able bodied, work full time, and experience stressors like finances or teenagers or one thing after another breaking down and needing fixing.

Another misconception relates to how outsiders view looking in. I remember this one time being at dinner with our kids when they were little, and an older couple nearby had zero patience or understanding for my situation until Geoff wheeled up to the table to join us. Being an exhausted mother with little ones wasn't enough to earn their empathy -- until my disabled husband joined us; then they were all smiles. I remember wanting to punch them in the face and realizing how irrational that sounded. Another time a man grunted, “Real nice making the wife pump gas” towards Geoff sitting in the driver's seat while his windows were down and I was, in fact, pumping gas. I turned, smiling at him, purposely wanting him to feel like an ass, "My husband would pump his own gas, but his legs are paralyzed."

And so, we turn to the helpers for whom we are eternally grateful. In this spring season's episode of "Who Helped the Krills" we can name Casey Caulder and Craig Whitman who came to fix the leak beneath the slab of our house. The worst-case scenario of a leak beneath the slab hasn't been fully realized yet, but we are working together, tag teaming who gets to call our State Farm agent. While this spring means back hoes in the yard, it also reminds us of the good people we are surrounded by; the yard will look good again for next year's prom, and, well, it can always be worse.

Happy belated Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day and all the days in between. Happy Anniversary on June 23 to my husband, Geoff. There was a lot we didn't know or be able to predict back on that cool, very buggy day in 2007 when we said our vows in front of our people. But love stands strong even if there is a hole beneath the house.