Advent 22: Not on Death’s Door

In the middle of the night I stared at the ceiling convinced that I had the one strain of flu impervious to vaccination and that, considering my advanced age, I would surely die, if not by morning, certainly within a few days. I wondered, swathed in my self-pity and farewell world speeches, why my husband slept soundlessly, his back turned to me as if he’d already gone on with his life.

My despair was interrupted three times by my husband mysteriously getting out of bed, naked, of course, since he’s not worn pajamas since he was six or seven, to fetch a towel from the bathroom to wipe up a pool of vomit deposited by our dog Punchy. I feigned sleep. Because who could expect me, in my dire state, to get up to help? The nighttime vomiting was part of a three-day saga resulting from Punchy’s enthusiastic embrace of a new toy. A handful of the thick yellow bits of the kibble ball were still sitting on the edge of the sink from the night before. That’s how low we’ve sunk.

The combination of my being deathly ill, my husband’s profound lack of concern, and the echoing belly grunts of our puking dog made for a long and hideous night.

When morning finally came and I was still alive, I stayed perfectly still hoping that two DayQuil tablets would magically appear and that I wouldn’t have to get up to go find them. My husband had gone downstairs (in his robe, of course) to tend to the dogs and make coffee and had been gone for what seemed like centuries. I decided that he had made coffee for himself and his friend who is staying with us for a few days and they were drinking it at the kitchen table while I lay snivelling alone upstairs.

In what was, I believe, an heroic effort to right myself, I risked being seen in my utter and complete dishevelment and went to the hall linen closet to find the DayQuil which I took immediately like it was quinine delivered by airlift to treat my advanced malaria. I crept back into bed where I waited for the cure. A cure which eventually came to my faithless, sorry self, if only for a while.