The toughest job nobody should have to do

Elaina and I have been married for just over 37 years. I was in the Army and she was a college student. We married after a whirlwind romance that lasted about three months. No, really. We literally met, got married, fell in love and got to know each other. In that order. While I don’t recommend that kids today repeat that process, it clearly worked for us.

(I actually blame my dad for the rush. When my folks met Elaina about a month after we started dating, his offhand remarks, “I hear wedding bells” rang true.)

I always considered Elaina a solid rock who tolerated me far more than I deserved. After all, she allowed me to chase my dreams across the country dozens of times. She trusted me to join forces with a person she’d never met and start a company and move 500 miles from home. And she threw herself into the crazy business of newspaper sales so many times that she actually got really good at it - twice earning a regional sales director title and once being publisher of her own paper.

All to support my calling.

Elaina’s first love is our daughter. And before everything else, she is Yia Yia to two little girls - one we haven’t even met! (Who knows when we will? Who knows IF I will?) Not a day goes by when her thoughts are not on those girls.

Elaina’s passion is art. A fantastic painter, she has yet to find a medium she doesn’t enjoy. Her current projects include a water color painting and a sculpture project I don’t quite understand, all while learning to use the latest digital software on her iPad.

But since October, Elaina’s had a new responsibility. She is my full-time caregiver.

The first requirement for receiving an organ transplant is to have an always-on around-the-clock no-days-off no-sleep-ever responsible person whose sole purpose is to keep you alive. Statistically, spouses volunteer for the gig in large numbers but swap out fast. And I can certainly understand why, based on my own experience. I’m a royal pain who is very nearly unmanageable on my best days.

And yet, Elaina doesn’t merely get by. She excels.

Sometimes she’s my drill sergeant, forcing me to take that one more step. (It usually involves convincing me to load the dishwasher or swap out laundry - but even those mundane tasks can be over the line on bad days.) When she’s not pushing me to take that one more step, she’s watching my back, making sure my meds are in order, literally keeping me on my feet, and even getting me semi-comfortably into bed every night.

And none of that includes her day job!

I know she’s worried about me, even when she forces herself to focus on the various tasks at hand. Three years ago, she was her father’s primary caregiver for the last few months of his life. I wasn’t there for most of that - she lived with her parents in Chicago while I ran a newspaper group in Georgia. But we talked twice a day, so I know just how much of that terrible time she internalized, just so she could be the rock her parents needed her to be.

From my distant support position then, I have a pretty good idea of what I must be putting her through now.

Whether heredity or stupid life choices decades ago, our situation today is on me. But somehow, she is the one carrying it all. It’s not fair.

So today, I’d like to formally give Elaina all of the credit she so richly deserves.

I love you, Sweetheart. Maybe next year I’ll be able to take you someplace nice for Valentine’s Day.