GOT IT BAD

Dear Spike:

You’re sick again.

Last week it was an ear infection. This week it’s some sort of stomach bug.

I’ll spare you the horrible details. Suffice it to say, you’ve got it bad — and so does your mother.

You’re both sleeping now, thank goodness for that. And while you are resting I’ve been thinking about another night when your mother was dreadfully ill.

It was early into our relationship and she was still living at her with parents’ home, where I had been welcome to come over but not to stay over. As the exact parameters of those rules had not been spelled out, however, you mom and I were operating under a rather liberal interpretation: I was always out of the house before anyone else awoke.

It was during one of these late-night visits that your mother began to wonder whether the clam chowder she’d had for dinner was setting well. Within moments she had turned a very sour shade of green and darted from her room, down the hall and into the bathroom.

I followed behind — just close enough that when she pitched over the toilet she threw up all over my foot. I stood there and held her hair, rubbed her back and hoped that her parents, who were sleeping in the next room, wouldn’t be awakened.

No such luck.

Roused by the commotion, her mother walked in, took one look at me (I wasn’t wearing a shirt) and your mother (who had successfully puked out her dinner and was now working on her lunch) and sighed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Clam chowder,” I said.

“Are you going to take care of her?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She nodded, turned and grabbed two towels from the closet by the door. “One for her and one for your foot,” she explained, setting the towels next to the sink.

And that was that.

The next time I came over, your grandmother had laid out a towel, hand cloth and toothbrush for me. It was never specifically noted, but the implication was that I didn’t have to sneak out in the dead of the night anymore.

I can’t be certain what your grandmother saw that night, but I think she may have glimpsed a bit of the future.

A few weeks later, your mother and I moved in together. A few months after that, we were engaged. And the following year, I stood with your mother in the backyard of that very same home and said “in sickness and in health.”

I meant it. Every word. And I still do.

Love,
dad