#
It was during the early years of marriage, though, that we gradually learned that wit is a hallmark of healthy relationships. When tension mounts, a dose of hilarity can deescalate annoyance. David knew that if he could coax a smile or a giggle from me, I would have a hard time holding onto my antagonism.
Humor is God's antidote to stress. Proverbs 17:22 says, "A merry heart does good like a medicine." David made sure we got our daily dose of merriment.
Two weeks after our vows were said, I got a crick in my side while walking home from campus. I could have bummed a ride, but it was a pretty day and the mile to our apartment was not particularly daunting. By the time I got home, though, I was sweating, nauseous, and my side hurt. I thought my time of the month had arrived. When the pain and discomfort worsened as the evening progressed, I decided to call for help. Since we were poor and needed the money David earned, I didn't call him away from his job. I called a friend and got her to take me to the hospital.
I allowed her to call David towards the end of his shift and tell him where to meet us. By the time he got there, the doctor had diagnosed appendicitis. Since we didn't have insurance or a family physician, the doctor at the private hospital where my friend took me suggested that David transfer me to Charity Hospital, so we wouldn't be saddled with a huge debt.
All the way to Charity, David told jokes. At first laughing hurt and I begged him to stop, but then, strangely, the pain began to ebb. When we arrived and I told the emergency room doctor the pain was gone, he asked where it had hurt. I evidently pointed at the exact location where an appendix should be. Suspicious that we were smarty-pants college kids who knew the location of the organ in question and were faking, he asked, "Did the doctors at the other hospital tell you anything?"
"Of course," David said. "They said she had appendicitis and needed an operation. That's why they sent us here. We can't afford an operation at their prices."
The doctor left the room to call in a colleague for a consult.
"If he only knew," I said rolling my eyes. "Science is my worst subject. When we dissected frogs in biology, my partner refused to let me near a scalpel."
When the medic – it turns out he was a resident – returned with the doctor on call, our smiling countenances did nothing to convince them this was a true emergency. To his credit, the doc did not dismiss us outright but decided to run a blood test to add to the records that came with us from the other hospital.
Unfortunately my veins roll, and David has a blood weakness. After they stabbed me several times looking for a vein, they exiled my husband from the room and instructed him to put his head between his legs. Eventually, they got my blood. While the tests were inconclusive, some factors pointing to the appendix and others contraindicating the diagnosis, the doctor decided to operate. It was fortunate he followed his hunch. My appendix was so inflamed and enlarged, it would have burst had it not been removed.
During my two days of recovery, David took Proverbs 17:22 to heart. He kept everyone in the six-bed surgical ward in stitches. I feared I would rupture my incision if he didn't stop making me laugh.
#
That's one thing that attracted me to Aaron, Faith thought. He has a great sense of humor, sort of like Daddy.
Aaron invented an amusing "thinking of you" game they still played. They had been dating on and off for a month when she first got the 'toy' message. When she answered her phone, the text message read, "toy pix/ my heart skipped a beat/ but not you" She checked for a picture and found a pair of shapely legs.
A day later, she saw a guy at a bus stop completely absorbed in a fantasy novel. She texted Aaron, 'toy' followed by the picture. The game was on. Each would text the other someone or something that was a reminder of the other. Usually there was no explanation, just 'toy' followed by a picture.
As Aaron had left her sitting under the oak tree that day after Mama's funeral, he had looked back over his shoulder and called "toy." She had known he was telling her that he would be thinking of her while he waited for her to contact him.
She picked up her phone. Aaron had sent her a toy while she was sleeping. The phone had been on vibrate and hadn't awakened her. She pulled up the picture that she had ignored that morning. It was a wooden swing hanging under a large tree. On the seat of the swing was a single rose. He obviously was waiting to hear from her.
Suddenly she knew that she had to know more if she was ever going to come to terms with Aaron's confession. Before she had time to change her mind, she hit the #1 fast dial that would connect her to Aaron.
"Hello? Faith?" he said, as though he was expecting someone else to be using her phone.
"It's me, Aaron," she said and then rushed on before she changed her mind. "Who was she? The girl?"
"Her name was Kyra Hancock. But what difference does that make?"
"Did you make her laugh?"
"In the beginning. In the end I made her cry."
"Just like me," Faith whispered.
She didn't even realize she had voiced the words until Aaron responded.
"It can't be the end for us. I can turn your tears back into laughter."
"I'm still not ready. I'll call you again."
She rang off without giving him a chance to say more.
Going to her computer, she googled Kyra Hancock. One link led to MySpace.com. Under the name Kyra was a close-up of a blond with bangs falling into blue eyes that topped an enigmatic smile. The brief bio said she was 24 and lived in Monroe, Louisiana.
Faith leaned back in her chair, never taking her eyes from the girl. She picked up her bottle of water and took a deep swig. The water didn't go down right. She started to cough, spewing droplets all over the screen. She grabbed a cloth and began to dab at the mess, but her coughing intensified, thwarting her cleanup efforts. When she could finally breathe again, she wiped off the laptop. The blond still smiled. "Who do you think you are, Mona Lisa?" Faith asked the smiling visage.
Faith positioned her hand on the mouse. It was now or never. She opened Kyra's site and found the blond in a sundress kneeling cheek to cheek with a brown-eyed cherub with blond locks. The caption read: Dynamic Duo. Shandra's my date filter.
Faith gasped and stared. Was it possible? The woman's age was right. The child looked about six or seven. Could this be Aaron's Kyra? The one who said she aborted his child?
Faith studied the face of the little girl. Her eyes were the fawn brown of Aaron's, and they dominated her face the way his did, smiling out from behind prominent cheekbones. Her nose was different than Aaron's, though. Shandra's was short and pert, while his was narrow with a Romanesque arch. Only one cheek sported a dimple, the right one – just like Aaron. The blond hair was all Kyra. Aaron could be the father of the little girl.
"But so could any brown-eyed male with one dimple," Faith said aloud.
She skimmed the remainder of the site. Kyra was in nursing school at ULM, planning to become a midwife. Her first blog entry said, "You chose." Below the words were pictures. There were several duos. Each was a live childbirth shot pared with a gory picture of an aborted fetus. An ongoing debate on the pros and cons of abortion raged in the comments section.
"If this is the right Kyra, she has certainly done an about face on abortion," Faith thought, "or she lied when she told Aaron she planned to abort their child."
Going to the MySpace search, Faith typed in Kyra's name and Chandler High School. She was told that no matches were found. Still, this could be the right Kyra. You didn't have to register your high school when you created your space. That option was just to make it easier for old friends to find you.
"Maybe she's trying to hide from a certain old friend," Faith thought. "Still there has got to be a way to find out. She doesn't have to know that I'm linked to that old friend she's trying to avoid."
Faith returned to Kyra's home page and clicked on 'send message.' She typed in: "Did you graduate from Chandler High School?" She hit send before she could change her mind.
She turned the computer volume up so she could hear the ding that signaled incoming mail. Nerves jangling, she went back to the journal, where another of her Mom's columns marked her place. Unfolding the magazine clipping, she smiled.
"I know what this one's about," she thought. "Daddy's bound to be the star."
#
The Masculine Blood Weakness
BY SYDNEY LANDER
My husband has a blood weakness. David is not a hemophiliac. He does not suffer from Leukemia or any other disease involving a blood deficiency. His blood problem is a tendency to faint when confronted with the sight of his blood or that of someone he loves.
I understand that he is not alone. Many of the macho persuasion suffer from a similar problem. They have no trouble butchering animals following a hunt. They relish blood and gore in movies. They can even handle blood at the scene of an accident involving unrelated people. The blood weakness is a carefully guarded secret that is usually first revealed in an emergency, when a cool head is needed.
I was fortunate in discovering David's frailty when no emergency threatened. He and I went to get our blood tested so we could obtain a marriage license. We went together to his family physician. They put us in separate little cubicles to wait. When the doctor finally entered my room, he looked at me, smiled, and asked, "So are you going to faint too?"
David had been waiting calmly when the doctor and nurse entered. After a few routine questions, the nurse took out a vial and needle. When she stuck David and began drawing blood, he became so weak that he had to put his head between his legs, and then he fainted.
While I did not observe this first incident, the head-between-the-legs position became a familiar one over the years.
When our first child came along, I thought perhaps David's blood weakness had improved. By that time he had worked his way through school at various jobs. Part of his work experience was in a nursing home, where he faced bloody problems without flinching.
We both wanted him to be present at the birth. We attended classes and saw the mandatory birthing films. Piece of cake, we thought. When my water broke, David managed to get me to the hospital in one piece. He was there when they rushed me into the delivery room, because the baby's heart rate was dropping rapidly. He held up through the threat of a cesarean section. When the heart rate returned to normal, the doctor instructed me to push. David sat by my head and murmured encouragement, while he watched the proceedings in a huge mirror.
Then the doctor cut the episiotomy, and blood squirted out all over the front of his white coat. Down went David's head. I heard the doctor say, "You going to be all right, Dad?"
As the color drained from his face, David mumbled something that was supposed to be reassuring. He viewed the birth with his head down and sideways, looking up at the mirror.
By the time Joshua sliced his foot open when he was in the first grade, we both had learned to compensate for David's blood weakness. When we heard breaking glass and a scream from the kitchen, I was the one who jumped up and ran. I found Josh hopping on one foot and his brother still on a stool. I did not see any blood, and so I sent Josh into the living room where his Dad could check out his foot, while I cleaned up the mess.
Seconds later, I heard David bellow, "Sydney!"
When David took off Joshua's sock, the removal of the fabric, which had been pushed up into the foot by a sharp fragment of glass, released the blood flow. David held it together long enough to drive us to the emergency room. When our associate pastor got to the hospital, he found David in the waiting room with his head between his legs. I was in the cubicle with Joshua, soothing him while the doctor put 15 stitches in his foot.
Only one parent at a time is allowed to suffer from a blood weakness. Contrary to popular usage, in our family the term "weaker sex" is masculine.