I love my wife. There is no one on this planet I would rather be stuck working at home with, so now that I appear to be sharing space with her during the workweek, I thought I would share some stories about her.
I was working a patrol shift, in the days before cell phones (or at least cell phones that didn’t require a suitcase) when the dispatcher called me and said that my daughter (the older one, Jade, age eleven at the time) was on the phone and that it was an emergency. I got on the phone and Jade told me that her mother, Mia (my wife) had been trimming the lemon tree when it stabbed her in the eye and that she was bleeding. I asked her if the blood was coming from the eyelid or the eyeball.
Jade, “I can’t tell, there’s too much blood.”
Okay. I told her to call 9-1-1 and then let me know what hospital they take Mia to. Jade agreed and I hung up the phone. I sat in dispatch for the next thirty minutes, making inane conversation with the dispatcher, worrying about my wife and her eyeball.
Finally, I began wondering what was taking so long? Fire department response, maybe seven minutes, arrival and assessment, maybe fifteen minutes, then they should be packing her up and transporting. I should know where she’s going by now. I called my house back and Mia answered.
“What the hell are you doing home?” I asked, incredulous.
“What are you talking about? Can you believe Jade called 9-1-1? I had to cancel them.”
My mouth opened and closed but no words came out. “How is your eye?”
“I don’t know, I can’t open it. It hurts too much.”
“Okay, I’m coming home,” I told her and hung up.
I arranged to make sure my shift was covered and went home. It took some convincing, but I told Mia that I was not going to wake up in the morning with a puddle of her eye goo on the pillow, we were going to the emergency room. Several hours later, with a prescription for anti-biotics and a scratched cornea, we were home again. Safe and recovering.
And right now, as I type this, she is watching a horror movie (with both eyes), which she does not normally like to watch. So if you notice any typos or words missing, it’s because she is screaming near me periodically.