She Loves Me, Ya YA Ya

T is on Spring Break. This means that it is time for her to do projects. Her projects are not the ones that I would select, but since I am in no shape to do them, I will not complain. 

Today, she is changing all the blinds in our bedroom. They came with the house when we moved in nearly two decades ago. I liked them just fine back then. The only problem is that we live on a rather busy street and directly across from an elementary school which has bright lights on all night. And yes, one of our bedroom windows faces the school. The other one faces a stop light that starts blinking yellow every night at midnight and goes back to red, yellow, and green at sunrise. Still another one is in our ensuite bathroom that faces our next door neighbor's house. He has motion lights that go on and off all night crazily because we have several happy families of raccoons and rabbits who frequent our yards. 

These original blinds were a shade of beigey pink. Very light. And the light came through pretty easily. We learned to sleep in semi-darkness instead of deep darkness. And adjusted. Yes. We sometimes spoke of getting new blinds, but it was way down on our to-do list. It was under ripping up all the carpet to reveal the gorgeous pine floors under them and getting rid of the wall paper that resembled amoebas in our entryway and side halls. We also disliked the orange curtains in the office. Plus, all the windows, although gorgeous, were built with the house in the 1900's. And um...okay, our plumbing and water heater were also put in when the house was built, so we had a long list of to-dos. The bedroom blinds were, in my opinion, WAY down on the list. 

And then one day, T came to me with photos of new blinds. Blinds that were tailor made to keep out light. She wanted me to have the best sleep in the world and since I was spending more and more time in bed, felt that it was time to make my sleeping pleasure perfect. 

This is T. This is who I fell in love with, who I married. She always puts me first. Maybe this wasn't so noticeable before the cancer, but now that cancer is here to stay.....she pretty much lives to make my life as perfect as she can. 

She notices things now. She noticed that I have been spending a lot of time in bed and she wanted to make it as perfect for me as possible. Thus, the blinds. 

Tomorrow, she plans to put up a ceiling fan. 

I have always maintained that cancer does not give out many gifts. But, cancer has made my marriage near perfection. Cancer has a way of making us re-evaluate our lives. 

In her words, "Maybe I'm bargaining with God or fate or whatever. I figure if I do everything I can to make it easier for you, you might stay longer." 

I tell her that life is going to play out exactly as it is meant to be. But that I intend to fight to stay with her as long as I can. And that afterwards? She will go on to different adventures. Just without me. That we will miss each other, but I think we will meet up again and next time around...maybe we can be Olympic Athletes. Won't that be fun? To have bodies that work like finely oiled machinery? 

She laughs. Pats my hand. Yes, that will be fun. 

But, for now....we will have a deeply dark room and sleep well and sweetly. 

I sit and watch her work and feel as if maybe I am a very lucky woman.