One thing I really admire about my brother is that he just does things. He thinks it might be interesting to do something, and he does it. He once said that he has no regrets. That blew my mind because I had nothing but regrets. Well, at least I used to before my medical crisis. I looked at all the roads I had not taken, and I second-guessed the paths I did take.
That’s not to say everything turns out for my brother. They don’t. But he picks himself up off the floor, brushes himself off, and continues on. It’s really interesting. I am someone who feels things way too deeply. He’s someone who doesn’t feel things much. He’s told me he feels the basics–happy, sad, etc., but it’s very shallow. I just thought of something. His ex-wife had no sense of smell, so she could only taste the very basics. Sweet, sour, salty, etc. My brother is the same with feelings.
When I was in the hospital and unconscious, my medical team tried to prep my brother for the probability that I would not wake up. The social workers tried to probe into his feelings and get him to express them. They told him that he would most likely have to plan my funeral. My brother said that there was nothing he could do about that in the moment, and he would deal with it when and if it happened.
I laughed when he told me that because that is so like my brother. And I could imagine the look on the social workers’ faces as he said that. But they should be used to it because people react to grief in different ways. I know how it sounds. My brother has told me that he would deal with it if I died, and it sounds cold–but it’s not. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about me–he does. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me–he does.
Do you know how I know? Because he shows me. When my car got a flat, he came over the next morning to put the spare on. Several decades ago, the same thing happened when I was at work. I came out in sub-zero temps to see a very flat tire. I called my brother and he came over to change it for me. Another time, my car wouldn’t start and he came over to help me out.
When I was in the hospital, he was the one who coordinated everything. He set up a Caring Bridge journal in which he wrote updates every day. He directed people there if they wanted to know what was happening to me. He came and visited me every day and talked to teh medical team. He was the one who had to make the decisions as to what to do with me.
He was told the day before I woke up that he was going to have to make a decision about pulling the plug or not. As he was mulling that, the medical team called him and told him that I woke up.
He also Zoomed in our parents and my friends. He was the one who broke the news to them as well. As he was doing all this, he also had to do his daily life as well. Taking his kids where they needed to go. Doing his business. He’s always busy as hell, and me being in the hospital didn’t change that.
The docs told us two days before I went home that I was ready to leave. That didn’t give my family much time at all to prepare for me returning home. The nurse gave my brother a list of about ten things that would be good to have before I got there, and he got it done. My father, who never praises anyone, said that my brother just did things and got them done without complaint. Which is so true.
I am not like that. I may not complain out loud, but I do everything in a begrudging manner. It takes a Herculean effort for me to do anything new. Case in point, I bought a slow cooker. I want to make stews and such for the winter. I need something to be easy, and I figured that ‘set it and forget it’ would be perfect.
I got it almost a week ago (delivered), and it’s stil in its box. Granted, I had to deal with my car suddenly getting a flat tire, but still. That was three days of nonsense. What about the other days? I just haven’t. This is me. I can sit there and think that I should do it or even I would like to do it. I want to use the slow cooker. I really do! I even know what I’ll first make with it. It’ll be a potato corn chowder. I used to make one decades ago, but the old-fashioned way. And it’s fairly simple! Which is the whole point.
I was reading recipes for potato corn chowder soup, and some of them were so complicated. Look. If the recipe contains over ten ingredients and/or ten steps/tools, I am not going to do it. That’s just a hard fact. I know me. When I’m doing something I don’t like or am not good at, it has to be as simple as possible. When I mentioned to my brother I had bought a slow cooker (crockpot), he said that an Instant Pot can do the same thing. Yes, but it had too much tech and fiddly steps. I don’t want apps or a gazillion buttons. I want high, low, and warm (which is what the slow cooker has). I want, “Throw everything in the slow cooker” and walk away. So checking every hour? Nah, son. Not going to do it. This is what people who like to cook don’t get. I hate cooking. I am bad at it. I don’t enjoy it. I need it to be as simple as possible. They take for granted all the small steps that you have to do to cook because it’s second nature to them by now.
Man. That went everywhere but where I wanted it to go. Which is like me, too.