You turn thirty-three tomorrow.
That’s twenty-three years post-liver transplant. Twenty-three years ago, they found a mass in your liver because of some suspicious enzyme levels in your blood, which they would never have done in a young child except that your family had migrated to Canada and needed a health report. They found the evil mass and said you would die in six months. Then a phone-call came that someone died in a car crash and that you had to go to the hospital immediately. Immediately. Because that liver from that young man who died in a car accident would save your life.
You should have died.
Yesterday you went to the hospital. It was your first major routine appointment to get all your blood tests, ultrasound, urine tests, and heart scans done. You said the nurse was shocked that you had your transplant twenty-three years ago. You are still in awe of it, just as I am in awe of it, too.
It makes me wonder and believe that perhaps it is true, that a long long time ago, God saved your life for a reason we do not yet fully understand, and He loved me enough to save you for me, too.
That night when you had diarrhea at three in the morning, you didn’t wake me. Instead, you went out very quietly to check your emails because you couldn’t get to sleep. I woke an hour later at four, roused by your furious typing and made you a tear-drop mix of oral rehydration solution. I didn’t think I would do that- you see, compared to you, I’m quite selfish.
But I remembered the many nights I could not sleep and you, blurry eyed and exhausted, would drag yourself up to pray with me and stroke me to sleep; you would get up early anyways because breakfast is my favorite meal of the day; you take out the fan from our bedroom to the living room when I eat so I don’t feel too hot (we only have one fan); you go out to buy milk and bread at any time of the day or night when you realize we’ve run out; you plug out the wire while I’m ironing on a Saturday because “you’re working tomorrow on Sunday so no chores for you today!” …
… So what was a little tear-drop solution at four in the morning. A little bit of salt and a little bit of sugar… You said you fell asleep right after.
And not to mention my endless whining about everything and my impatience at times. And me taking short-cuts. And being obsessive-compulsive about certain things. You have your own gentle way of knocking sense into me. Once I remember, on the train platform, I was so tired I walked toward the lift instead of the escalator or stairs. I was bewildered when you pulled me away, because you had a stand- the lift is for the elderly and people with disabilities. So even though I was exhausted, I didn’t belong to either group. I was annoyed with you momentarily, but it won my respect. This was a long time ago- you mightn’t remember.
You see, that’s just like you.
Then there are the times you pick up my tissue, wet with snot from crying, because it is your way of saying you care and that we are one; there are the times like this evening when you are away at bible study class and I had to stay late at work and I come home to find summer flowers on our living room table, tied to the balloons some friends and I got you yesterday to surprise you (it was your third birthday surprise before your actual birthday, ha); and there was the time I remember I was angry with you for your tone of voice and you had no inkling but you sent me a text message that very morning saying how thankful you were for me, and for us.
You are the gentle giant who moves mountains, who generously sows seeds into the lives of others, and who pours himself endlessly, in a quiet and steady fashion. Tomorrow it’s your birthday, and it’s seems apt that we’re actually going for an interview to (hopefully) become trainers to youth for Focus On The Family.
Sometimes at home when we sit together on the couch I would outline your scar with my finger. It is a brutal scar, like an emblem of courage emblazoned on your tummy, in the shape of a Mercedes-benz logo. I would run my fingers on it, looking at the little prick-marks adjacent to it, where metal staples once were, to clamp the wounds together. I’ve been in surgical theatre before, so I can imagine how it might have been… how they anesthetized you, cut you up, clamped and sutured and stapled you… Twenty-three years ago, someone decided to open you up and give you a shot at a new life. You weren’t upset, you did not throw an angry fit at your parents and God. You happily celebrated your tenth birthday at the Toronto Sick Kids’ Hospital with balloons and video games and happily went home.
Three months after we got married, we found your surgeon’s email contact and sent him our wedding video to thank him. He had relocated from Canada to Chicago. Thank you, Dr Superina.
“Don’t you ever get angry with God? Like I mean, why did this have to happen to you?” I asked you yesterday, after you had spent a full morning at the hospital running around doing a whirlwind of various expensive sort of tests. Heart scan, bone density scan, ultrasound, 24-hour urine collection, a hundred and one lab tests…
I asked, because I know I will miss you when you go. When we got married, I married assuming that I would be the first to lose you in our lifetime. But we don’t live as if you are leaving- we roadbike, we go on mission trips to slums… we want to push the edge. It is not a life worth living to wear a helmet and mask all day walking only on the safe side of the sidewalk.
And you say without a flinch, “No… I mean, why should I be angry with God? I should have died twenty-three years ago. I’m still alive, I’m married to you. Life is… Awesome.”
And you pause, saying, “But I do ask Him sometimes, why of all people, He chose to save me. Because there are lots of kids and other people who die- either of cancer or from complications like rejection and infection issues.”
You turn sober. We hold hands, because we understand we are both undeserving of what we have now: you, of a new life, graciously given to you; and me, undeserving of a man like you.
So here’s a hug to my gentle giant who turns thirty-three tomorrow, on the first year of our marriage.
I love you.
