H is for Husband #TuesdayTidbit #Life’sAlphabet #Inspiration

Thanks to BeetleyPete for inspiring this series with one of his own he posted in December of last year, in which he wrote every day about his life, using consecutive letters of the alphabet. This week’s letter is H.

When I met my late husband, I was in my forties, and he was in his sixties. I hadn’t been in a relationship before and was content to remain single for the rest of my life, figuring it was better to never love than to love and be cheated on or abused.

Then, along came Bill. At the time, I was living in Sheridan, Wyoming, where I’m still living now. Bill lived in Fowler, Colorado.

In 2003, we met through Newsreel, an audio magazine where blind and visually impaired adults share ideas, music, poetry, etc. I posed a question about computers. Bill, having built and sold computers for twenty years, emailed me an answer. I wrote him back, and that’s how it started.

For the next couple of years, we corresponded several times a day by email and by phone once or twice a week. My father and I visited Bill in Fowler on our way to New Mexico to see relatives. Finally, in January of 2005, I received the shock of my life, a letter in the mail in Braille from Bill, asking me to marry him.

All this time, I thought he just wanted to be friends. But as I found out later, he’d been dropping subtle hints that hadn’t registered. When Dad and I had visited him the previous Christmas, for example, Bill had suggested we kiss under the mistletoe, but I’d thought he was joking.

Bill had proposed to other women before me and had been rejected. It had taken him six months to work up the courage to ask me to marry him because he didn’t want to face yet another rejection.

Well, he almost did. Taken completely by surprise, I didn’t think I wanted to be his wife. It took a couple of months and a visit from him with an official proposal, including a ring and necklace before I finally realized, for no reason I could fathom, that I loved him.

Bill moved to Sheridan, and we were married in September of 2005 in my grandmother’s back yard. Three months later, our lives changed again. Bill suffered the first of two strokes that paralyzed his left side. He spent nine months in the nursing home where I’d worked for fifteen years as a registered music therapist. In September of 2006, when I brought him home, he was in a wheelchair. We both hoped he’d eventually get back on his feet with the help of outpatient physical therapy.

But in January of 2007, almost a year to the day of his first stroke, he suffered a second one. It wasn’t as severe, but it was enough to set him back to the point that he would never walk again. I cared for him at home, most of the time, until he passed in October of 2012.

You can read the story of how I met, married, and cared for Bill in My Ideal Partner. This is a memoir containing a poem at the end of each chapter. I leave you now with one such poem. You can click on the title to hear me read it.

 

BILL’S HANDS

 

 

Soft, gentle, they caressed me,

once milked cows, fed livestock, gathered eggs,

tapped computer keys in a busy office,

glided across Braille pages,

placed a ring on my finger, as he said, “I do.”

When one hand no longer worked,

the other did what it could.

Now they’re both gone

but will be remembered.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description by

Two Pentacles Publishing.

 

 

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New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Copyright 2021 by Abbie Johnson Taylor.

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

Photo Resize and Description by

Two Pentacles Publishing.

 

Sixteen-year-old Natalie’s grandmother, suffering from dementia and confined to a wheelchair, lives in a nursing home and rarely recognizes Natalie. But one Halloween night, she tells her a shocking secret that only she and Natalie’s mother know. Natalie is the product of a one-night stand between her mother, who is a college English teacher, and another professor.

After some research, Natalie learns that people with dementia often have vivid memories of past events. Still not wanting to believe what her grandmother has told her, she finds her biological father online. The resemblance between them is undeniable. Not knowing what else to do, she shows his photo and website to her parents.

Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

Her younger sister, Sarah, senses their parents’ marital difficulties. At Thanksgiving, when she has an opportunity to see Santa Claus, she asks him to bring them together again. Can the jolly old elf grant her request?

***

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