Becoming real

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."--Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

Last night I read this story to my daughter before bedtime, and the section above stood out to me. For all the trials we've been through in the last nine months, J.J. and I are becoming Real.

I often get frustrated with people who treat J.J. like he is dumb or somehow less capable because of his aphasia. My husband is brilliant, and the fact that he sometimes has trouble finding the words to express his thoughts doesn't make him any less so. I know this, and the people who truly care about us know this...why should it matter what the rest think? They just don't understand, so they don't know that J.J. is Real.

We all have our challenges. J.J.'s struggle happens to be more public than the struggles that some people have to endure. As the Skin Horse said, sometimes being Real hurts.

This is where the rubber meets the road. It's easy to swear to love someone in good times and bad when you've never had to experience those bad times. We've been through the bad times now, though, and it's made our marriage stronger. Are we perfect? No. Is our marriage perfect? No. Do we have trials? Sure. Because we are, and our marriage is, Real.

In sickness and in health

Yesterday we attended a friend's wedding, the first we've been to since J.J.'s stroke. I was completely caught by surprise by the wave of grief I felt while listening to the vows, the same ones I recited so long ago. I wonder what that Erin would have said had she known how soon "in sickness" would come to roost?

I finally said it.

Friday was a very interesting day. I left work early since my ear and head were throbbing. Since the rest of the family has had the flu, I figured I was coming down with it as well. By the time I got home, the pain had spread into my teeth. For anyone who has never had the experience, let me tell you that tooth pain is some of the most intense ever. I took a leftover Vicodin from my last root canal and it didn't even take the edge off. Around 8:00 p.m., I felt something odd in my mouth, reached in and pulled out a chunk of my lower right wisdom tooth. Suddenly the pain dulled. Weird. So to make a long story short, I'll be having oral surgery on Wednesday to have this tooth removed (my dentist wouldn't do it himself since on x-ray it appears that the root of this tooth may be wrapped around the underlying bone. From the intense jaw pain I had on Friday, I think he might be right).

Anyway, while I was doped up on Vicodin and couldn't sleep, J.J. and I sat in bed and talked. Well, I talked--he mostly listened. And I finally verbalized something that I've been thinking for a while; that I doubt J.J.'s recovery will be complete. That I think that although he'll continue to fine tune his speech, that he'll always struggle with some aphasia. That his writing and reading will most likely continue to improve, but I think his speech will always be halting and slow.

J.J. agreed with me, said he's known this for a while but didn't think I wanted to hear it. And he's probably right.

I'm not happy about this, but it's time to face facts. Besides, it could have been so much worse. After seeing how some of the survivors we've met have lost so much function, I can't get too upset about J.J. He's at home, walking up and down stairs, driving, working, even writing again.

Life goes on.