In Sickness and In Health

Denny seems a bit down today, I think I’ll make him some of his favorites, thought Janet Callahan as she cleared some space on the kitchen counter and set to work on preparing lunch for her husband. Janet had always enjoyed cooking, and although he was a meat and potato man at heart, her spouse had usually been a willing and eager recipient of her culinary innovations. She had had to develop some new skills in the kitchen, however, since Dennis Callahan’s stroke nine months ago left him unable to swallow regular food.

Janet collected a cutting board and a food processor from the pantry, and rummaged through the refrigerator searching for available ingredients. Spying a leftover chicken breast, a plan started to take form in her mind. “Ah, chicken salad will do nicely, he hasn’t had that in a while and he was just asking about it a couple days ago.” Meat took a little extra time and attention as Denny’s diet required pureed textures and the chicken would have to be processed to complete smoothness.  She didn’t mind.  Janet smiled at the thought of the look on her husband’s face when he realized what was on the menu today. 

Though the left side of his face was now largely paralyzed, Janet thought there still wasn’t anything that made her day like the sight of her husband’s smile. She thought back to her first time seeing it--my God, could it really be nearly forty-five years ago? She had been sitting alone on a bench in the university quad reading one of her literature assignments when Denny, accompanied by a small contingent of his male friends, sauntered by. She vaguely recognized him as they shared a history seminar class that semester. His small talk and ultimate invitation out for lunch were awkward at best, but even then, she sensed something exceptional about him--he positively exuded kindness, and the more she chatted with him, the more she found she wanted to know him better. Now, over four decades later, she marveled that there was still the occasional tidbit that would come out in conversation that offered some new insight about him. His speech was now thick and at times could be difficult to understand, but thank God the stroke had left his mental faculties intact.

Janet had just added a little more almond milk to the chicken salad to achieve the proper consistency, then took a small taste herself to ensure that the texture was as it should be. Satisfied with the result, she began cutting up mango into chunks and opened a can of coconut milk, the contents of which would become part of one of Denny’s favorite tropical smoothies. She had just put the last of the ingredients into the food processor when she heard the soft but distinct sound of weeping coming from outside the kitchen. She quickly wiped off her hands and headed to the family room to find Denny in his recliner watching the news, tears in his eyes. Janet turned to the television; the weather was on, certainly nothing that should provoke sadness, even if the forecast was for continued rain. Denny was already starting to calm down.

“You OK there, love?” asked Janet.

“Yeah, yeah, just my damned ridiculous condition again, that’s all,” replied Denny.

Janet suspected as much. Denny’s “condition” as he called it, had begun shortly after the stroke, and caused sudden spontaneous bursts of crying or laughing. With Denny, it was usually crying. “Pseubobulbar affect” the doctors had called it. The damage from the stroke had caused the part of Denny’s brain that controlled emotions to not communicate appropriately with the rest of his brain, leading to what his neurologist called “a kind of emotional incontinence.” Janet, satisfied that there was no actual crisis at hand, gave her husband a quick squeeze of the hand and a peck on the cheek before returning to the kitchen. She had experienced this countless times before. There really wasn’t anything to be done about it. Denny had been prescribed medication for it a few months ago and it had helped, but the crying and laughing fits were still a several times a week occurrence. Some of Janet and Denny’s friends, try as they might, found that they were unable to cope with this lability and had gradually drifted away from them. Thank God for the friends that were left, Janet thought.

She had just made it back into the kitchen when seemingly from nowhere an upwelling of emotion crashed over her. Not quite sadness. Not really anger. No. This was grief. Denny it’s not even been a year since you retired. We planned to travel, Paris, Istanbul, maybe even an African safari. The medical bills are going to take all the money before long. The tears came faster now. The doctors said the stroke had been caused by a clot that probably formed in his heart and traveled to one of the arteries in his brain. A clod of coagulated blood not even the size of the tip of her little finger. If he had made it to the hospital within three hours, there were medicines that may have been able to dissolve the clot before permanent damage occurred. But the stroke had happened sometime in the night, only revealing the havoc it had wrought when Denny woke the next morning. Why? Why this? Why now? WHY??

Ten years ago, their roles had been reversed. She remembered her doctor, her tone concerned but at the same time professional and clinical, relating the pathology report of her breast biopsy. “Moderately differentiated infiltrating ductal carcinoma.” She couldn’t have related too much of the discussion that followed, but what was forever imprinted on her memory was the look on Denny’s face. Fear. Pure, primal, fear. It was a look that Janet had not seen in thirty years of marriage, and it was more terrifying to her than anything the doctor had said that day. If he ever had that emotion again, he never showed it to her. Treatment lasted three months. Denny used his sabbatical leave that they had been saving for a trip to Europe, and never left her side during her treatment. He didn’t miss a single treatment, a single surgery, a single day. He doted on her with every fiber of his being. “My father taught me that for those you love, you would make sacrifices,” Denny had told her. “But right now, I don’t think that’s quite correct, because being here with you feels like no sacrifice at all.”

Janet had been so engrossed in these memories, that when she recovered from her reverie, she realized she had completed Denny’s meal. Her face was still damp with tears. She took a kitchen towel and blotted her cheeks. She wouldn’t allow him to see her this way. After a few minutes she had regained her composure. She collected the food she had made on a tray, brought it in to where Denny was sitting, and placed it on the table next to him. “Time to eat up, dear,” she said. Denny’s eyes widened at the sight of some of his favorites, then beamed with a half-face smile. “This looks wonderful, darling, I hope you didn’t go through too much trouble making it.”

No sacrifice at all, thought Janet, as she returned the smile to him.