#174 He Takes Care of the Mess

Every Tuesday, my brother Jonathan comes over my house for dinner. This past Tuesday night, after we had eaten and watched a little TV, Jonathan said he wanted to go home. Usually, he will cling onto every possible moment to stay at my house, but tonight I could tell something was off.

As I stood up from the couch to get ready to leave, Jonathan leaned over on the couch and let out a cough that can only be defined as a violent mixture of phlegm, wheezing, and intense gut action.

We know this cough.

A few years ago, we were at the mall with Jonathan and Joel. Jonathan had been acting tired and cranky towards the end of our trip. As we walked out to leave the mall, Jonathan debuted this very same cough. The mall was closing, but the cough was so out of the ordinary for Jonathan that Joel instantly turned around to buy a water bottle.

The cough walked with us to the car. With my hands seconds away from opening his car door for him, Jonathan looked up at his reflection on the window and vomited all over the door.

It was all I could do not to jump for joy at the sight of Joel running across the parking lot with a bottle of water in his hand. Jonathan got a few sips, then the rest of the bottle was given to the attempt of getting the vomit off the car.

So as this eerily similar cough was coming out of Jonathan’s mouth Tuesday night, Hubby sat up and said, “He’s going to throw up”.

I was in denial, so I didn’t seize the moment quite as quickly as I should have and seconds later my rug was covered in vomit with a look and smell distinctly related to the 7-layer taco dip Jonathan had asked me to make for dinner. Hubby ran upstairs stating that “he almost just threw up too” and I thought he was leaving me to fight the battle alone.

Stupidly, I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the two bowls that our tortilla chips had been in from dinner. Jonathan threw up in one, and then in the other, and as this beautiful process was occurring I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t just grabbed the trashcan that was two feet away from the bowls.

With no other option left, I ran the filled bowls back into the kitchen and exchanged them for the trashcan. Of which, you guessed it, he expelled two more rounds of 7-layer taco dip scented barf. It was around this time that Hubby came down with a bucket of soapy water to take care of clean up.

I'm sure you are wondering why I am sharing with you my Tuesday night from hell. You’ve had your own share of rounds with stomach bugs. And if you have children, I’m sure you’ve done more than any human should have to do of cleanup duty.

But I promise, I have a point.

When we were fairly convinced he wasn’t going to let anything else out, we got him together to go home. He was shivering yet warm, his face pale and confused, breaking my heart with each second that passed. As I was trying to comfort him, I told him he was going to go home and rest.  I grabbed my phone to tell my mom what happened so that she could give his job coach a heads up that Jonathan was sick and probably wouldn’t be able to go to work the next day.

When Jonathan heard that he immediately said, “I see Mr. Chris tomorrow.”

“No Jon, you’re sick, honey. You probably won’t go to work tomorrow. You need to rest. You just threw up a lot,”

“I all better. I see Mr. Chris tomorrow. I go Praise and Worship (at church).”

“I don’t think so, we’ll see how you feel,”

To which, during our drive home, we had the same exact discussion about four billion more times. He was convinced he was all better, despite having just thrown up five times (and about six more later that night at home). Regardless of what his body was going through he knew two things: he still wanted to go to work the next day, and he still wanted to go to church that night.

Especially this morning, after losing an hour sleep last night due to daylights savings time, after waking up half an hour late and having the teeny tiny desire to skip church, I find myself put in check by someone who most people often overlook.

How many of us look for excuses out of work? How many of us want to sleep in on Sunday, or play hooky on our other church responsibilities? How many of us choose laziness over productivity? How many of us choose selfish desires over helping others?

My hand is raised.

Yet here, someone that is often labeled as a burden to society, incapable of serving a purpose, amidst shivers and bending over the trashcan, wants nothing more than to work and go to church.

When I see Jonathan’s passion for life, it makes me ashamed of who I allow myself to be when I’m angry, not feeling well, or just in a bad mood. He makes me realize that I will forever be working on putting my priorities in an order that God would be pleased with because my humanity time and time again will always cause me to fail.

I say it often, but I’ll say it again, Jonathan is my hero. He may not be society’s definition of perfection, but the unprejudiced love within him, the sincere care and concern he offers, and the joyfulness with which he approaches all circumstances makes me aspire to let go of myself and become more like him.

#173 He Never Takes Pictures

We had another snow day yesterday.

Hubby's desire to live in LA is starting to rub off on me, just a bit. Have I mentioned that before? While I do appreciate the beauty of a snowstorm, enough is enough.

Perhaps it isn't even the snowstorm that really gets my goat.* It might just be the single digit temperature I woke up to this morning.

*How on earth did goat become synonymous with anger?

After shoveling and trying to clear my car for around fifteen minutes, I wondered why my hands were beginning to feel numb. I came inside, where the warmth of course confused my frozen body, shivered my gloves off, and had to refresh my phone to believe that it was actually 8 degrees outside.

Wasn’t it just 41 degrees two days ago?

Hubby has been sick for the last couple of days and I feel like my body has been working overtime to fight off the lingering germs that fill the air around me. But regardless, he is the one who is doctor-approved sick which means that yesterday and today I shoveled for the first time this season. 

I can't say it enough; I am blessed to have a man who takes care of snow for me.

Yesterday might have been the first snow storm ever that we made no attempt to leave the house. Around lunchtime, Hubby suggested I move my car from the street to the parking lot beside our house. Begrudgingly, more so towards the storm than the audacity of Hubby’s suggestion, I threw on my Uggs, shoveled a pathway to my car, and moved it the fifteen-feet distance from the road to the lot.  It wasn't quite as cold then, so I thought I'd be whimsical and grab my camera to take artsy shots of the snow. After about five minutes I decided three things:

1. Trudging through inches of snow for the perfect shot isn't worth it. 

2. Trudging through inches of snow for the perfect shot while it is still snowing heavily is certainly not worth it.

3. My little corner of the world doesn't hold enough beauty to make trudging through the snow while it is still snowing heavily worth it.

I marvel at people who can capture that perfect shot of snow. Actually, I marvel at people who can capture perfect shots of any form of nature. I often see landscapes while I am driving that I think are breathtaking, perfect photo opportunities. I'm sure the true photo enthusiast would screech to a halt and capture that moment regardless of traffic, weather, or personal pride (yes, sometimes snapping photos of random things like trees or your dinner will raise eyebrows).

For myself, I think more than not wanting to pull over the car, I choose not to photograph a gorgeous sunset or a field covered in snow because some things I don't want to miss a moment of in exchange for sharing it with the world. Some things need to be spurts of beauty that we keep to ourselves. Beauty that in that still small moment was meant to be for you and you alone.

Sorry to expose such anti-photography, bohemian-like thought. It won't happen again.

Or...maybe it will.

I make no promises.

#123 He Shovels

Here are the top ten things you must know about the past month of my life.  These things have literally given me brain freeze which has forbidden me to post about anything else.  I think of something wonderful to write about, but when I realize I haven't addressed these issues, I come to a stand still.

1. It has been ridiculously cold in New Jersey.

I don't know what is going on with my state.  We've experienced cold when it should be warm, and hot when it should.  We've had freezing weather one day, then fall like weather the next; we've had comfortable spring like weather followed by days that are well below freezing.

2. Hubby was away in LA when New Jersey started to get crazy cold.

While Hubby was away, I heard on the radio that the temperature has been so low in New Jersey that if you are under the age of 40, you have never experienced such temperatures before in your lifetime.

That, of course, does not take into consideration those who have visited a location that experiences these temperatures regularly.  In that case, however, I have to wonder why you were even there to start with!

I was afraid for Hubby's sake that he would miss out on this life changing experience.  Lucky for him, the cold has been persistent.

3. The school that I teach at already has four snow days to make up.

Four days!*  And winter isn't even over yet!

*I don't event want to mention the delayed openings we've had.

4. New Jersey has had more snow this year infinity times more than last year.

Out to breakfast with Hubby one Saturday morning last October I jumped like a child on Christmas morning at the sight of monster snowflakes which within moments covered the shopping plaza with a white blanket of beauty.

And that was all the snow I saw last year.

I'm not going to lie, this saddened me a little.*

*Okay, a lot.

5. We had more days off last year for hurricane weather than winter weather.

Hurricane Sandy and her vicious winds brought so many downed trees and therefore power outages that we were off three days last year because of Sandy.  It got to a point where it was actually annoying to be stuck home for another day in a row.

6. The novelty of how cold it has been in New Jersey amazed me at first.

Then I stepped outside early in the morning and after five minutes of trying to defrost my car I began to wonder where the feeling in my gloved finger tips had gone.  It was that moment that I decided I was done with the cold.*

*Let me not forget to mention that the frost was INSIDE my car because there was moisture on the floor from melted snow, etc.  Boy, wasn't that fun!

7. Although there have been enough snow storms that I could compete in the Winter Olympics event of Snow Shoveling* I have only had to shovel snow once.

We have street parking and a short distance of sidewalk to shovel, however, shoveling is shoveling.  It's a thankless task that although you start it thinking, "Golly gee, I'm going to use this instead of my workout today", by the time you have shoveled for five minutes you are ready to plop down on the snow, curse your workout, and cry like a baby.

Thank you Hubby for keeping me from having to do this too often.

*I'm working on the proposal for this event.  It seems like a 'duh' event to me.

8. For the first time in my life, I have disliked snow.

While I was attempting, horribly, to climb on top of a foot of snow to push snow off the top of my Hummer, a man across the street from me said, "You know what I think?"

Me: "What's that"

Man: "I think that when they (nods towards the bar he's shoveling for) go to pay me I'm going to say, I want a ticket to Florida. (He pauses to shovel a little more).  I'm done with this snow!"

Me: Sounds good to me.

Man: "And that'll be a ONE way ticket!"

While I wouldn't agree with the location (Let's see...Rain everyday?  Retirement capital of America?  No thanks....) I certainly shared the sentiment.  I've definitely said, "I'm tired of snow", "I hate the cold" multiple times already.

9. I've allowed myself to grow so sick of the added bite to the temperature that I've forgotten to just deal with it and try to find some beauty in it. 

I know, I know, the cold and the snow starts to give us all cabin fever, especially during a year like this.  We've been treated roughly.  We've had to bundle up.  We've had to start our cars early.  We've had to shovel and scrape.  But, let's face it, we can't change it.  If we can't change it, we might as well try to find a little beauty in it.  After all, things that are beautiful aren't always the most pleasant.

10. Gram turned 81 today.

I know this one is totally un-snow related, but let's see if I can work it in.  Last year when we threw Gram a surprise 80th birthday party it snowed the night before.  So much that I had to wear my fuzzy furry boots with my party dress so that I wasn't heel deep in snow as I filled my car with party supplies.

My Gram rocks.  If you want to know how we celebrated her birthday this year, go over to The Orange Strainer.

Final Note: You would think with a post like this that I would have beautiful pictures compiled of the snow to share with you.  Sorry to disappoint.