Piecing together a new life

When I arrived at the rehab hospital to visit one last time, Juan was napping and Maria was in the lounge, fitting puzzle pieces together, a metaphor for her life. We talked for a long time. Everything in her life has changed. She leaves tomorrow to fly back to make their house accessible for a wheelchair. She has to find someone to stay with Juan while she goes to work. When she comes home, there will be new tasks for her to handle before she can sleep. Their medical bills are beyond imagination, as this country has the most obscene system of medical care on earth. They can't afford more than two weeks of rehab, so next week she will come back and drive him home, whether he is ready or not, 1,250 miles. Their truck is too high for him to get into, if (as we all hope) he regains the ability to stand so he can transfer from a wheelchair to a chair or a seat in a car, so she will need to rent a car to drive him home, and perhaps she'll have to trade in the truck and buy a car. 

Her attitude is courageous. "I'm not doing this alone. I'm doing this with Juan. We talk about everything, we work it out together. We have been through harder things, like when our son died. We have known each other since we were ten years old. We met in school, and I didn't like him at first. He courted me all through high school; I came around to him slowly." She laughed, "Now we really know each other, we help each other out in ways no one can see. We will find a way to get through this."

I asked her what support she has at home. "You mean other than our two daughters? Well, I have some wonderful colleagues at work." She works with the school bus system in the county where they live. "All the bus drivers, the staff, we've known each other for many years. They give me friendship. We laugh together. We help each other. This is why I haven't retired, because my colleagues are people I love to spend time with. I think I am going to need, more than ever, to keep my mind busy and to know who I am, besides the person in my house, the person caring for Juan." 

When Juan woke from his nap, he joked that he was trying to look sexy, to give a couple of old ladies a thrill. He said he wants to get home as soon as he can because he misses his chickens.

"Oh," I asked, "do you keep them for the eggs or for meat?"

Maria laughed, "Neither. He keeps them as pets." 

He agreed, he can't even think of eating them, and they don't produce many eggs, "At least not where I can find them." When we stopped laughing, he grew serious. "I hope I can get back to where I was before this happened. But I don't know." 

Because I'm leaving early on Tuesday, I won't see them again unless they come back to Portland or I go down to Arizona. It was hard to say goodbye.