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11/14/2013
Dear Dr. Laura,
I was married for 14 years. For a lot of those years I was a nag and not my husband's girlfriend. I nagged about him not giving me receipts when he spent money. I nagged when he took the kids to the grocery store and won them stuffed animals in the claw machine. I nagged when he went off to play golf, something he loved to do. I began listening to you and saw myself in so much that you said. I decided I wanted to be a girlfriend to this good man - a man who would have slayed dragons for me.
On December 4 2011, I got a call that my husband had fallen at a friend's home. He wouldn't allow 911 to be called until I got there so our 10-year-old son wouldn't be scared. As I said, a good man. When I drove up, I saw my husband laying on the floor, unmoving. I ran to him and saw he was paralyzed. Dear God he was paralyzed from the upper chest down. The ambulance came and off we went to our local trauma center. I rubbed his arm, prayed, and thought I want to be his girlfriend - I don't want to be a nag. I stood in the trauma bay and was told that the outcome for his type of injury was poor. I watched as they intubated him. I watched as they wheeled him away for the CT scan that would tell me he was now a quadriplegic. I sat by his bed, rubbing the top of his arm, his face, his head - the few places where he could feel my touch. At that bedside the lack of giving me receipts, of winning stuffed animals for the kids and playing golf made me feel a fool. I would have given anything for him to get those things back. We made it out of the trauma center and rehab.
For five months I cared for him, the house, our two children and had to work full-time now. How in the world did I ever complain about my life before. As I said, I was a nag. In that time I became his girlfriend again. We laughed, we watched movies and I laid my head on his shoulder. I realized I still had a good man. In August of 2012, a pulmonary embolism took him from me. I stood in the ER and made the decision to let him go. I stroked his brow, told him good-bye as his girlfriend. There are many regrets that I have, but I had 8 months where I was the wife I should have been to him for our entire 14 year marriage and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to be his girlfriend again.
Keep doing what you do. I just wish that I would have listened to you so much sooner.
Thanks,
Jennifer
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