Selfishness

For just a few minutes I'm going to indulge my selfishness. I keep telliing everybody that I can't wish for Donny to come back because of the pain he was in. But damn it, I want him back! I miss him. And as long as wishes are being granted, I want him healthy.

By the time I met Donny he was already at the top of a very slippery slope healthwise. We didn't realize it then, but it was already the beginning of the end for him.

Donny was a painter for about 30 years. He loved painting. He loved to look at a house and see not what it already was, but what it could be. Repaints were his favorite. On new construction there usually wasn't much room for imagination, but when dealing directly with the homeowner there were tons of possibilities to be explored.

And if you wanted to know about colors, Donny was your man. He had a better eye for color than I did. Plus he could tell you what color would be murder to repaint when you got sick of it. He loved the whole process of painting, and was damn good at it.

One day Donny was painting the outside of a house that had that uneven brick finish around the bottom half of the walls. As he came running down a ladder he managed to slam his tailbone into a corner where some bricks were sticking out. It jarred his back and he was hurting so bad that he had to go home. When he was no better the next day he went to see a doctor. It was during the course of treatment for his back that he found out that he had degenerative disk disease in his back. A couple weeks later we met.

I can remeber when Donny was released to light duty at his old job, only to reinjure his back in less than a week's time. He never made it back to work.

We had been dating for a little while, and Donny was just starting to look into the possibilty of vocational rehabilitation when he fell and whacked his head one day. he hit the back of his head so hard that it gave him 2 black eyes. Shortly after the fall he started having what I later was told was absent seizures. Then as we were dealing with that we found out about his liver. (After that a doctor told us that Donny wasn't having seizures, but that his little "episodes" were caused by his ammonia levels.)

I never knew my husband at 100%, and I wish that I had. I've heard tons of stories about what he used to be like, but I don't have any actual memories from those times. I know that he loved to fish and hunt. And he played baseball. In fact, in his youth Donny pitched a fast ball that was clocked somewhere around 95 mph. I'm told that's rather impressive, but I know nothing about baseball other than the fact that I suck at it.

I want memories of my husband from when he was well. I want to be able to say that I saw him play ball at least once. i want to say that I ate a meal that he went out and killed for me. I want to know what it's like to go camping with him. But I'll never know these things, all because I met him a little too late.

I sit here crying and wishing him back, all because I want just a little more time with him. Maybe it's selfish of me to wish him back, but I do. I miss him so much.