She teeters with joy and glee, full speed ahead, unbalanced, side to side almost tipping, arms out, learning to walk. The hardest part is changing directions. She falls, resorts to her familiar and quite efficient mode of transport, the Mowgli walk, as in Mowgli from the Jungle Book. She is on all fours, back legs straight, bottom up, she scurries away, bored with us, her captive audience.
He is almost upright for a moment, then stoops over, holds his thighs with straight arms, becomes a human carpenters square, bending over more, then finally squats to the ground hands steady in front of him, keep him from tipping all the way over and going ass over tea cups. He neither likes nor appreciates an audience, and one politely asks if he is ok, to which he always replies, “just a little dizzy”.
She walks and toddles to our clapping smiles and laughs. Looks for cheers to continue.
He stoops to silence make no fuss, he is after all, “just a little dizzy”. The protocol then is to look away after making sure he isn’t going all the way, unconscious fall on the ground down better get him to the ER for stitches, down. It hasn’t happened yet, he feels it coming he says, a strange vertigo sensation, floor rising, and falling away, the extra special effect played out in real life, I wonder if it feels anything like Hitchcock made it look like in Vertigo…
She is taking first steps, soon running off into the world, ambulatory and free at last, building up speed, hard to catch.
He is taking some of his last, refuses assistance, wheel chair or scooter. He will soon slow and will maybe cease refusing. His illness is unrelenting, progressive and terminal. I think when he is reduced to doing the duck walk to the bathroom, he will allow some assistance.
He started by calling it Shy-Dragon, which then morphed into Crouching Dragon since he spends the majority of his days crouched in a squat, a literal squat as in, this is how a woman pees when camping, squat.
The squat is his go to position for trying not to pass out. I have decided to count how many times a day he squats it must be at least two or three an hour, I’m betting 30 for the entire day. I am counting them, starting tomorrow for he never reports these almost passes out “spells” to the Dr. because he tells me, “Almost doesn’t count”.
Bullshit. I am counting.
The humor of squatting to remain erect isn’t lost on me.
Shy-Dragers became, Shy Dragon, then Crouching Dragon, and finally can you guess?
He now refers to his illness as Crouching Tiger Syndrome.
I have long stopped correcting him, whats the difference, Shy Dragon, Shy Dragers, Crouching Tiger, MSA, it is all the same and all terminal.
So yes Mr. Shakespeare a rose by any other name would still suck, totally.
She my granddaughter.
He my father-in-law.
One is a new arrival, one approaching departure.
I thought they were coming and going, passing while going different directions, but now I see it is all giant circle, a giant turning, for everything there is a season turning returning from whence we came turning…a giant circle of life.
The Life Cycle is a circle filled with joy and pain that we humans experience but at times it seems like a teeter- totter balanced on a tightrope. Our emotions filling in the space like a geometry equation for Area.
One hopes that their beginning and end will be wittnessed by someone as loving as you.
nicely said Dawn