Oh, when I taught freshmen English, those little dudes and dudettes learned irony so well. Romeo fell for his great enemy's daughter. Well, crap happens. Not ironic. But her falling back in love with him. Hmmm. What were the odds?
Remember Della cutting off her gorgeous hair to buy Jim's watch fob while that adorable son-of-a gun sells his watch to buy her...the tortoiseshell hair combs?
Sigh.
But irony doesn't happen in real life like it does in a great author's carefully-thought-out plot. It's days and weeks and months of every emotion from elation to despair. My hero had three surgeries in the last 3 1/2 years to repair knees and a shoulder ruined by a career clmbing mountains and ladders, carrying equipment that would break anybody else's back, and having a roof fall in on him. So this year, his new years resolution was not to be an invalid anymore. He was gonna start living his old life.
Wrong.
We're caught in a vortex of symptoms that just don't let up. Each day brings some new, inelegant surprise. When the doctor said chemo would kick my babe's ass, dang, he wasn't kidding. That's the unkindest irony of all: medicine making him sick before he can get well.
Well, my hero is not an invalid. I misspoke. It's just that normal life is on hold for a while. It hits me most when I grocery-shop, and all around me homemakers are buying rib-eye steaks or talking on their cell phones to "Honey, what do you want for dinner?"
And I'm trying to find popsicles for his sore mouth that don't contain lemon or orange, and sugarless candies for him to suck on which, BTW, are found in the diabetic section at the drug store. I get so jealous of those normal women that I hate myself.
I bawl all the way home, but make sure my eyes are dry when I walk in the door. He needs me to be strong.
Too bad I'm such a wuss.
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