Within months, I was pregnant. Every house we've lived in since then has been a fixer-upper in need of extensive repairs. At times, he's worked as many as five jobs at once, and we've had months when we were so poor we lived on leftovers from the senior meal program where he worked. We have our white house now, and a minivan in the garage. Our days are filled with three spirited daughters, nights with his part-time job at the church and my evening classes and the kids' Brownie meetings and school functions.
Life gets busier all the time.
We kiss in passing, bring each other coffee in the mornings, chat on the phone from work. But in bed, we mostly just sleep. Despite being paralyzed, he sometimes has violent spasms, and the guardrails are to keep him from falling out. If that happened, I would have to call the paramedics, or at least two neighbors, to help me lift him back into his bed. After my husband's cycling accident, I tried sleeping with him in his hospital bed in the living room, but it was too cramped.