Clinging

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Despite how miserable and wet the morning has been, we left the apartment and eight o’clock and went to the doctor’s office, did lab work, and made it back home by 9:30. So for a disabled fellow like myself, that’s what we call a full day’s work. So now it’s a little after ten o’clock, and of course I’m sitting at my keyboard bragging about what I just did. But considering where I sat some ten years ago, this my friend is a major accomplishment. For the longest time my family and my physicians thought of me as a delicate little flower that should be kept under glass.
 
But in my mind and my soul I knew I had to get things done. Because I knew if I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done. Some of you out there they think that’s a bit of an exaggeration but it’s not. With my Bride in the condition that she is in and with four small children. Living 125 miles away from the nearest Grandparent meant we were on our own. Now that doesn’t mean that we didn’t have a friend or distant relative nearby. It just meant no one was coming over to see how we were doing in those days. So till our daughters grew up and gained their independence, did we really have a safety net.
 
Today we have our one son living with us here in the apartment. After decades of living without such luxuries as central heat and air, a dryer, or running hot water. I still feel two things. Gratitude and fear. Gratitude that we live in a home that meets the most basic of needs. And fear, that haunting little speck that lingers in the back of my mind thinking, that it all can go away. So I remain vigilant watching everything, critiquing every move, every sign.
 
While it ain’t much of a way to live, I try to balance the gratitude with the lingering dark. But isn’t that the way it’s always been? But when you’re bred to look over your shoulder waiting for the next disaster. I envy those that don’t have to live this way, with their false bravado and puffed out chest. Telling the world how special they are, all the while being paranoid someone’s going to take it all away. How pathetic and weak you are. Still clinging to your momma’s teat.