Karma

Okay, it’s happened.  I’m suffering from a bout of diverticulitis.  Really suffering—mainly because of the antibiotics.

But why is it karma?  My husband suffered from diverticulitis in his forties and fifties, and I admit to making fun of him.  Mainly because in the middle of something, he’d always be rushing off to find a bathroom.  I was usually his spotter because I have an obsession with locating bathrooms no matter where I am.  Thus—well, Heathrow.

Have you ever landed in Heathrow after an overnight flight from somewhere and had to queue up for customs and immigration?  It’s an exciting way to spend your first hour—or two or three—in Europe, or as the British would call it, England.  Needless to say, my husband had needs.  Spotter to the rescue, I pointed him toward the bathrooms.  But I sure as hell wasn’t going to lose my place in line.  Let him crawl back under the ropes and through the hordes to find me.

I’m not exactly a caring person—I am assured of this by my children—but I’m beginning to have a teeny tiny bit of sympathy for what my husband was going through.  Of course, I still find his many bathroom escapades annoying, but now at least they are understandable.

But enough about me—as if!  When I married my husband and we got around to talking about vacations, he told me that one thing he would never do is go camping.  Being a former Girl Scout and camp counsellor, I was a bit chagrinned.  I loved sleeping out under the stars, always on slates of rocks because I was told snakes didn’t crawl on rocks.  I think that was probably a lie, but I’m not checking it out at this late date.  My husband claimed he had been in enough tents in the army and he was never sleeping in one again.  And yet, he didn’t balk at taking me to Stuckey’s.  Some things can never be forgiven.

One thing my husband did like to do was hike.  There are flat places on earth.  He avoided them all.  We always had to hike up.  GPS in hand, he would march up that trail, never stopping to consider whether I was behind him.  And sometimes I would just stop and wait for him to realize I had been missing for the last half hour.  These chubby little legs can only carry me so far.

Oh, the hikes we took.  There we were, getting up at 4 a.m. to climb Mount Sinai.  He always positioned me in the front of the pack because he said, then, when the others were catching up, we’d have time to rest.  So why when we got to the top of Mount Sinai, did the guide say it might not have been where Moses received the Ten Commandants?  Did I go through all that for nothing?  And why did the guy who just sat on the bus also get a certificate for making the climb?  Did he frame it?

Masada.  Yes, there’s a cable car, but did we use it?  Of course not.  But my husband did relent and say we could take the cable car on the way down.  The only trouble was by then there was some nasty ticket taker who told us we’d have to pay for a round trip if we wanted to climb on board.  That was the first time in my life that I have actually sworn at someone profusely.  In fact, it was the only time.

Innsbruck?  Let’s not go there, but we did.  Ah, the fresh air, which I gulped down desperately.

Alaska?  My husband took me on a business trip, where we were entertained at the Alyeska resort.  Time for a hike before the next get-together.  Except somehow we took the wrong path or the longer path or something.  We could see where we needed from the top of the hillside.  So my husband decided we should take a shortcut straight down that muddy hill.

I finally told him I could go no farther.  My legs were shaking.  He said he’d just go down and see what he could do.  He made it.  But I was shaking so bad that all of a sudden my leg snapped and I was on the ground.  There was no one around.  The only thing I could see was a sign saying, “Beware of Bears.”

Finally I was found by three kids and their dog.  Fortunately, there were emergency personnel at the bottom of that hill who were training for the winter.  They got me out of there.  Have you ever been in shock?  Have you ever wondered if Alaska was a quick divorce state?  Did my husband ignore me and go to all the planned activities?  Did Alaska Airlines make any accommodation for my leg in a cast?  Yes, no, no, no.

I rather enjoyed our hikes in Australia.  They were mild, calming, incredibly beautiful—except—Ayres Rock.  Okay, you finally can’t climb that anymore.  Unfortunately, when we were in Australia, we could.

Some people take all day to climb Ayres Rock.  We had four hours or the bus would leave us behind.  Once again my husband shoved me near the front of the line, where you had to pull yourself up by a cable.  Once you reach the plateau, where the helicopter could land to save people like me, the climb is easy.  But what can you see from the top of Ayres Rock?  Exactly what you can see from the bottom.  So glad it’s off limits.

New Zealand was a special case as far as hiking went.  We bought a book of hikes when we first arrived there and I found one that said “easy.”  Easy maybe for the sheep, but it exhausted me.  Are there any flat places in New Zealand?  Oh, yeah, the beaches.  But I have to admit it’s one beautiful country.  This is probably why they’re limiting immigration.

But why is all this karma, you might be asking.  Or not.  Because my husband, who has scoliosis of the spine—which didn’t keep him out of the army—can no longer even stand up straight.  He’s bent and twisted and uses a walker.  All his exercises now take place in a chair.  And some day I assume it’ll be a wheelchair.

Of course, I feel sorry for him.  He’s my husband.  But then I think, where was his sympathy when he dragged me on all those hikes?

Still, I better watch out.  You never know what’s going to happen.  One slip and fall and—bingo, you’ve won a prize you never want.