Winter
came early this year. Wisconsin usually sees a few snowflakes in October, but nothing
that sticks or accumulates. This year, though, I've already scraped a few
inches off the car — twice — and it's not even Halloween yet. Snow over a heavy
layer of autumn leaves on the ground is an invitation to slip and fall on your
butt, so be careful out there.
Stephanie
was a tough dame, and she liked our difficult Midwestern winters. She enjoyed
bundling up and going out into the cold. We had snow-picnics — driving
somewhere snowy and scenic, then munching sandwiches and sipping cocoa in the
car. A couple of times, once in Kansas City and once in Madison, we made
snowmen. We sometimes made snow-angels — you know, where you lie down in the
snow and flap your arms, then stand up and see the life-sized "angel"
impression you've left behind. Fifty-some years old, I hadn't made any snow-angels since I was a
little boy, but Steph and I made snow-angels. Just another way she brought joy
to my life.
* * * * * * * * * *
She
picked out our snow-shovels, and we bought them at Ace Hardware. We had two,
because when there was snow we usually shoveled together.
We have an assigned
space in the parking lot behind our apartment building, and the management has
a contract with some plow-jockeys, so the lot is plowed whenever it snows.
They'll plow the individual parking spaces if they're empty, but if your car is
parked when the plow comes, they'll plow a mountain of snow right up to your
bumper. They're hired to plow snow off the asphalt, but the snow has to go
somewhere so when they're done there might be two or three feet of snow between your car and the
cleared, snowless lot. Yup, Steph and I spent plenty of time shoveling our car
out of the snow.
The
building superintendent has a mini-plow, about the size of a lawn-mower, which
he uses on the sidewalks in front of the building. It's appreciated, of course,
but he's only a part-time super — he's at his real job forty hours a week, so if it snows while he's not home we're on our own. Yup, we've shoveled the sidewalk many times.
And
even when the super plows the sidewalk, he stops at the property line, so if we were feeling energetic we'd sometimes bundle up and shovel the sidewalks on either
side of our apartment — the house to the right of us, and/or the apartment
building to the left. Good Samaritans with a couple of snow-shovels.
Once
Steph started having difficulties walking, we only needed one snow-shovel. For
several years, though, we kept the second snow-shovel in the closet, hoping that
Steph's problems with her legs would be only temporary. Closet space is at a
premium in an apartment, so I quietly took her shovel to Goodwill after her
left leg was amputated.
* * * * * * * * * *
Wisconsin is well-known for its cold and cruel winters, and winters
in a wheelchair present additional problems. There's an eight-foot stretch of grass between the sidewalk and the
street, and that grassy strip sees lots of foot traffic, so a dirt
trail has been worn through the grass in some spots. When it rains or snows,
the dirt trail becomes a sea of mud; the wheelchair's wheels would sink into
the mud.
And
sometimes in our neighborhood or elsewhere in our travels, the sidewalks were blocked by construction, or
boxes, or storm-downed tree branches, or bags of trash — things you'd easily sidestep while
you're walking, without much thought or hassle, but these are serious obstacles to anyone in a
wheelchair. When I wasn't pushing, and Steph had to roll her own wheels through snow and mud, her
hands and fingers were often grimy and wet, so we kept several rolls of paper
towels in the car.
Winter
is cold, of course, but Steph mentioned numerous times that one of the side
effects of her kidney failure was that she always felt colder than the ambient
temperature could explain. If the apartment was 70° Fahrenheit, to her it felt like 55°,
so we kept the thermostat cranked pretty high.
At the kidney clinic, for reasons never adequately explained, the thermostat
was always dialed uncomfortably low; I wore a jacket whenever I accompanied
her, and it usually felt about 60° inside that place, so to Steph it felt like
45°. Which means she spent several hours being uncomfortably cold, three times weekly, in addition to all the other indignities of dialysis. She
always packed a blanket in her dialysis bag, and often asked for a second blanket
during her treatment. When I picked her up afterwards, she usually wanted me to
run the heat full-blast in the car, even in summertime.
* * * * * * * * * *
When
she was still walking easily, and working for the state, she drove to her office, parked in an open-air lot, and I took the bus to my job. When walking became
difficult for Stephanie, scraping snow off the car seemed much more of a precarious
challenge, so always on snowy days I'd get up ten minutes early, and scrape the
car for her before she left. If it snowed during the day while we were at work,
I'd try to leave work a little early, bus to her job, and scrape the snow
off the car before she came out of the building.
Sometimes,
if we had a date or she was in an especially good mood, Steph would drive a mile out of her way to pick
me up at my job — a smooth ride home in the car, instead of a herky-jerky ride on the bus.
One afternoon, with snow gently falling
but not much sticking to the ground, she volunteered to give me a ride home. I waited in the lobby at my
workplace, and when she pulled to the curb, I came out with a smile. Seeing Stephanie
usually made me smile, even on lousy days. I walked toward the passenger side
as always, but she was already stepping out of the car. Not our usual routine.
"You're
driving, OK?" She said.
"Sure,"
I said. We opened our doors, and took seats opposite of where we usually
sat in the car. "But why?" I asked.
"You
know I've been having trouble walking. The leg muscles don't follow orders like
they used to…"
Of
course I knew this; she'd already seen a couple of doctors about it, and gotten
really no help. She'd taken up exercise, and we'd joined a gym, with Steph
putting most of her time and effort into strengthening her leg muscles. Lots of
pedaling on a stationary bike, and standing in a machine that simulated climbing
stairs. We'd been hitting the gym three times weekly for a month, and I could
feel increased strength in my legs and arms, but Steph only felt weaker and more
exhausted, not stronger.
She
continued: "When I'm driving, my legs don't work the gas and brakes as
well as they used to. On my way here just now, pulling out of the parking lot
at my work, I tried to stop the car so I could look both ways before going out
into the street. But my leg's response was slow. The car ended up five feet into the
street before I could stop it."
"Yikes,"
I said, after a long pause.
"I
didn't hit anything, and I drove extra-extra careful coming here, but … I think
I have to stop driving, at least until I get my leg strength back."
I've
replayed those words many times since that afternoon. "I think I have
to stop driving," she'd said, "at least until I get my leg
strength back." She spoke plainly, with no tears and no noticeable emotion, but she was scared, and so was I. She wore her brave face so I wore mine, too.
After
that, Steph went through a lot of physical therapy, and countless hours of
"practice walking" in our apartment. We continued going to the gym,
until that horrible evening when she collapsed in the parking lot after our
workout. She underwent several surgeries, but all to no avail. Her leg strength
never returned, and she never again drove a car. The next winter, her left leg
was amputated, and she was never able to go back to work.
* * * * * * * * * *
For
the rest of her life, I drove us wherever we needed to be. I rejiggered my work
schedule to drop her off at her job on my way to my job, and to pick her
up on my way home. Doctor's appointments, trips to the library, to the park, to
the hobby shop for crochet materials, or the hardware store for a hammer — wherever she needed to go, I drove her.
Steph was,
of course, frustrated and sometimes furious at the loss of her independence. Never
again could she simply get-up-and-go anyplace she wanted to go, but she rarely
complained about it, and often thanked me for being her live-in Uber. "Complaining
wouldn't help," she said. "What helps is that you're always willing
to drive me where I need to go, always there when I need someone to talk with, always
holding my hand even when I'm at home and you're at work."
In
her corniest, sweetest moments, she'd sometimes add, "I don't know how I'd
be able to do any of this without you — the doctor appointments, the dialysis,
any of it. And without you, I don't know whether I'd bother to try."
Stephanie
tried, and Stephanie succeeded. Despite all the obstacles in her way, all the
bad-news diagnoses and a lot of borderline-competent medical care, the
isolation of living in an apartment that wasn't disabled-accessible, and all
the other unfair challenges Stephanie stared down every day, she never stopped
trying.
Even in the last days of her life, in that hospital she hated, amidst
all the doctors and nurses and interns, even as she was slipping in and out of consciousness,
Stephanie never gave up. She died, yeah, but she never stopped trying, never
stopped fighting until her heart stopped beating.
So
winter is here, another winter without her. Autumn leaves, covered with snow.
Scraping ice off the windshield. A snow-picnic at Tenney Park, with a sandwich
and cocoa in the car. At home, the thermostat is again cranked up, making the apartment
a little too warm, so Steph won't be chilled.