Dear Readers,
This one is going to be schmaltzy. Hey, it's late at night, and I feel schmaltzy. Bear with me. Tonight I want to talk just to you men who are caregivers to your wives. I made some huge mistakes when I was in that role, and I don't want any of you making the same ones! Break new ground! Make goofs that just may be original with YOU. God knows there are a zillion ways to displease a woman. But if you read the lessons I've learned, you can at least avoid making the same mistakes!
Lesson One: Women do not want to be told that they look “fine.”
I clearly remember the dumbest thing I ever said to Carol. It was evening, and she had spent considerable time getting dressed and all gussied up to go out to dinner somewhere with me. She stood before me and asked, “How do I look?” I too quickly answered, “You look fine. Let's go.”
Oh, fellas, did I catch hell for that one. If I could take that lame response back, I would have said, “Carol, you look just like the girl I married.” Or, “You look downright radiant.” Or, “Wow, you are still the young woman who stole my heart.”
It's too late for me to hit a home run now, but you still can! Use your imagination. Fall back on your fondest memories of the lady who became number one in your life, and blurt out something impossibly romantic. I just wish I had been bright enough to say, “You look like the woman I love.”
Lesson Two: Women will always like candy and flowers.
If you've put your wife up on a pedestal — and I hope you have — you'd better say and do everything you can to keep her up there, especially now that she is coping with cancer and in need of every demonstration of affection that you can muster. Don't just say (as I did), “Hey, I got a bargain on Hershey Bars and this bouquet at Walmart.” With a little finesse on your part, it could be a memorable moment for her. The chocolates still look best in a heart-shaped box (the redder, the better), and the flowers should already be in a vase, with nutrients in the water to make them look good for a solid week.
Lesson Three: All women love romance.
I should have had that great truth tattooed on my forearm, but instead I often concentrated more on the patient than on the woman. Don't do that, guys. Whenever you interact with your life partner, be gallant, be dashing, be extraordinarily attentive, even to the point of being corny. I guarantee you it will make her smile.
Lesson Four: Synchronize forks.
Most men eat faster than the women in their lives. It might be a gender thing. It's not uncommon for a male caregiver to wolf down his meal before the wife can get her meat cut! I was awful that way with Carol, even before she got cancer. I somehow got into the bad habit of devouring my food, whether at home or eating out, and Carol would hiss, “Slow down!” I'd manage to do that for the remainder of that particular meal, but I never did apply self-discipline sufficiently to make her rule my own. So, I missed many chances to share a leisurely meal with the most important person in my life. If “Slow down!” applies to you, please do so, and let meals with the wife be the pleasant highlights of the day that they can be, complete with sparkling conversation.
Lesson Five: Maintain your personal appearance.
Your focus on looking sharp is good for morale — yours and hers. So, try not to wear anything too outlandish when you leave the house (with or without her). Hey, word gets back! Throughout our married life, Carol was always quick to criticize whenever my dress code slipped a notch. She'd often say, half-amused, “Mike, please tell me you're not going to wear THAT in public!” She was great at shaming me into going back to my wardrobe for a reassessment and corrective action. But as she lost the energy to police me, I lapsed back into making some terrible clothing choices!
I once had a winter coat that was literally falling apart, and Carol stayed on my case about it till I took it to a seamstress and eliminated my “street person” look for about 15 bucks. Thanks to her hard work, I cleaned up pretty good, but the point is: I could have dressed right for just about any occasion by talking myself through what to wear, thereby relieving her of her role as “clothes cop” and liberating her from worry that I might be out there making a spectacle of myself.
If you are a sharp dresser, you don't need this little lecture. If not, take heed.
Lesson Six: Listen closely to your wife. She's still the lady of the house.
She was doing a fine job of holding things together till she had the bad luck to get cancer. Don't forget for a minute that she's still the expert on how things work at your home. So, let her continue to do the things she has the energy to do. This will greatly lighten your load as caregiver, and she will greatly appreciate being needed.
Lesson Seven: Keep your sense of humor, your “play” instinct, and an optimistic outlook.
When I was caregiver for Carol, I found that a sense of humor is essential for this “line of work.”
Carol had a fantastic attitude about her affliction. So, we could often joke about things that would have upset us both before we got her diagnosis of Stage IV small-cell lung cancer. Once we were both engaged in the struggle to lick the cancer, we realized we had two basic choices: laugh or cry. We chose laughter, whenever our emotions would let us, and all the chuckles and belly laughs that ensued made every day a lot more tolerable.
So, don't be afraid to laugh with your wife whenever your circumstances of the moment get sufficiently ridiculous to amuse you. Every situation is fair game, whether it's a potty chair mishap, a sitzbath gone awry, a bargain wig that looks like hell once you get it home, or any other event that's part of your struggle with a nasty disease that won't go away without a fight.
Play is important, and Carol was playful — competitively so. She was a Scrabble fanatic, which worked for me, because so am I. She also was a vicious canasta player, who reportedly never lost a hand. (Not to me, anyway!) She also held her own at several wacky card games we learned during many winters at the Briny Breezes trailer park, on the Atlantic Ocean, in Southern Florida.
Fortunately for us, she was also a huge movie fan, and we had Netflix built into our Samsung Smart TV, providing fairly old flicks (almost all of our favorites), plus we had several movie “packages” that didn't cost much per month.
Optimism is, of course, a basic requirement if you're going to give care to your wife while she battles cancer. If you don't have it, fake it. She'll have enough on her mind without seeing you worried about her. So, be bubbly. You could end up being permanently bubbly, which is not a bad development!
To sum things up, you will no doubt find your own ways to inject humor into your unique caregiver relationship with your ailing wife, keep the right kinds of fun and games consistently in play at your home, and focus on the bright spots in your daily struggle to make her well. I wish you both a spectacular outcome and many, many years of quality life together.
—Michael E. Hearons
