The Best Seven Years of My Life

George Shannon, Chad Patrick Shannon

Description

With retirement approaching and his marriage on cruise control, George Shannon left for a much-needed vacation with his wife Carol. Their lives changed forever on their final night in Cabo San Lucas, when George awoke to find that Carol had suffered a debilitating stroke. 

As they rushed back to their hometown of Pittsburgh, questions, doubts, and fear consumed George’s mind: Would Carol survive? What level of care would she need? Would George be up to the task of serving as her caregiver, a role he knew nothing about?  



During the next seven years, George and Carol would face a series of medical and personal challenges that would relentlessly test their resolve. Every day George would help Carol meet her needs, and every night, he would go to bed wondering whether he had done enough. He soon discovered that the caregiver role comes with unexpected rewards—gifts that would leave him a better, happier, and more fulfilled man. The Best Seven Years of My Life is the tale of an unlikely caregiver, a journey to rediscovering humility, and the story of a man blessed with the amazing chance to fall in love all over again.

foreword

CHAPTER ONE: the moment of change

CHAPTER TWO: dedication

CHAPTER THREE: unrelenting

CHAPTER FOUR: a search for inner peace

CHAPTER FIVE: the healing power of humility

CHAPTER SIX: better days

CHAPTER SEVEN: whether tragedy or turkey

CHAPTER EIGHT: feel the love

CHAPTER NINE: it finds you

CHAPTER TEN: the mighty fight

CHAPTER ELEVEN: on her own two feet

CHAPTER TWELVE: for the rest of my years

acknowledgements

Informations

• Publié par: George B. Shannon
• Date de parution: 26 novembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781732645554
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

the
BEST SEVEN YEARS
of my life
GEORGE SHANNON
CHAD PATRICK SHANNON

































Copyright © 2018 by George Shannon and Chad Patrick Shannon.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo- copying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
First Printing: 2018
ISBN: 978-1-7326455-5-4



To Ma Mère and Pops,
for not only living with true grit and great spirit,
but for their courage in sharing their lives for this book.



foreword
Steve Thomas
Sewickley, Pa
“… for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do us part” is a traditional Christian marriage vow derived from the Book of Common Prayer in 17th Century England (when the average lifespan was about thirty-five years). Given today’s longevity, a lifetime commitment whatever life brings can truly be a heavy one. The Best Seven Years of My Life is a love story that describes how George Shannon honors those vows as tragedy strikes when his wife Carol suffers strokes, and when it first becomes clear that she is going to need someone to care for her every hour of every day.
Most people’s reaction to these circumstances would be to tumble into depression. Life has dealt you a bad hand. You’re boxed in. It would have been so much easier for George to find someone else to take care of her than to do it himself. Bring strangers into the house to offer round-the-clock care. Put Carol in a home. Take the easy way out. But that isn’t George. Self-pity wasn’t an option for him. If he ever felt sorry for himself, he never showed it. He was all in.
When the relationship faced its drastic change, George totally accepted his fate and grew from it. He recognized anew that he was, as he puts it, “terribly in love with this woman.” He found joy in a seemingly never-ending task that would buckle most of us at the knees. He moved into a state of “agape love,” a Greco-Christian term describing the highest form of love known to humanity—a transcendent, unconditional, selfless love that commits one passionately to the wellbeing of others and persists regardless of circumstance. It is love with no expectation of reciprocity.
George talks about his relationship with Carol in delightfully amusing ways. After the strokes, her personality changed. She lost



the filter that kept her from blurting out personal thoughts that might be considered inappropriate for public consumption. This resulted in Carol developing a sudden, unexpected, and riotously funny sense of humor. It changed their relationship in ways that brought George great joy, even as so much about his daily life also had to change.
George’s depth of caring for Carol is truly spiritually uplifting, but the greatest surprise of all is how his expression of selfless love changed him. I relate this from the position of an insider, a close friend of George and his family for thirty years. Like many male friendships, ours was initially based upon similar interests—golf trips, poker, and jovial camaraderie over too many cocktails. Our competitive natures drew us to each other, fueled by testosterone, ego, and a mutual enjoyment of challenging one another, both verbally and in games of skill. George was a man’s man, a pot-stirrer, someone you would undoubtedly enjoy having a drink with. However, a dramatic shift in his temperament was in store. As George devoted himself to Carol’s wellbeing, he became a humbler, more compassionate and spiritual human being. He opened himself to vulnerability, noting that “self- defense is really not important anymore.”
The Best Seven Years of My Life provides a template for others facing similar circumstances as they seek comfort and inspiration to rise above their travails. I only hope they have the good fortune to read this book and take from it the knowledge that love (and love alone) can carry us through times that can truly seem too much to bear. There is nothing wrong—and in fact, there is a lot right—with accepting and showing the softer side of your soul. When you do this, you don’t have to decide how you will deal with a caregiver situation; you will find ways to accept it, embrace it, and figure out how to make your life not just as good as it ever was, but better.









CHAPTER ONE
the moment of change
We can love completely without complete understanding.
– Norman Maclean
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
January 2017
My eyes opened to the digital numbers projected on the bedroom ceiling: 4:02 A.M., large and red. The recent years had shaped in me a powerful fixation on time. How many minutes had passed since the last time Carol woke me? Would it be better to administer her insulin five minutes or twenty minutes before breakfast? When exactly were the doctor appointments today, and what time was her physical therapy session at the rehab facility?
How long would Carol live? How long would I live?
By the time I’d shaken off enough sleep to sit up, my wife had already managed to get her little legs out of the bed. She didn’t have the strength to climb down on her own, and even in the heavy darkness, I could see her big, white, fuzzy socks dangling high above the floor. There was no telling how many times she’d gotten herself stuck in this position while trying to wake me. My hearing had been going, and even before the stroke, Carol’s voice was often hushed.
“I see you’ve got those Tweety legs ready to go,” I said, my voice groggy as I delivered the same joke I’d been telling for more than forty-seven years of marriage.
“They are what they are,” Carol deadpanned.
I forced my fatigued body to shuffle over to her side of the bed. Her walker awaited me, but since it would only slow us down anyway, I decided to help her to the bathroom without it. I sat her straight up and wrapped my arms around her. She was a tiny thing. For as long as I’d known her, she’d claimed to be over five feet tall, but a trip to the doctor’s office just yesterday had finally confirmed the sheer egregiousness of that fib. The truth was closer to four feet, ten inches.


Photo on previous page: Carol with her favorite teddy bear.




Balance was often a fickle friend to Carol, so I made sure to secure her arms tightly before bringing her to her feet. “I have to go really bad,” she reported, drawing out the urgency of the really.
“Gotcha, honey,” I replied.
We held tight to each other as we waddled to the bathroom. Since the strokes, Carol’s gait had been much more of a short-stepped shuffle than a walk. Just like her physical therapists, I would often encourage her to take larger steps. Halfway through the journey, I grabbed her hand and took a step too fast for her.
“You have the wrong arm,” she said.
She’d broken her right shoulder a few years back, and it still pained her to put weight on it. I slowed up to release the pressure. It probably came from a place of cranky exhaustion, but I remember thinking that it would’ve been nice if she’d included a “please.”
When we arrived at our destination, Carol reached for the silver grab-bar we’d had installed, then let gravity do the rest as she plopped down on the seat.
“Another safe landing,” she announced.
I chuckled as I lumbered out of the room to give her some modicum of privacy. The poor woman probably couldn’t remember the last time she’d been left totally alone. I couldn’t have been more than a step past the white-framed doorway before she called out to me.
“I think I’m done.”
“Let’s maybe wait another minute before we go back to bed,” I suggested, my tone a mixed bag of hope and directive.
She quickly agreed, so I returned to the edge of the bed and did some plopping down of my own.
Getting up frequently wasn’t anything new, but this night had been particularly rough. We’d had to wake seven times since we first went to bed during the eleven o’clock news. On the sixth time, just an hour before this latest occasion, Carol had failed to wake before trouble struck. Early in this phase of our relationship, an accident in the bed might have frustrated me, but by now, I’d performed the routine so many times I’d lost count. It had become almost mechanical. Immediately, I would go into the preprogrammed twenty-five-minute cleanup mode: Get Carol out of bed, change her clothes, help her wash herself, strip the sheets, start a load of laundry, make the bed again, and get her back to sleep.
From opposite sides of the room, we sat in silence for a moment



before I heard Carol’s signature rustling. For years, whenever she found herself near anything made of disposable paper—usually napkins, tissues, or toilet paper—she would fidget w