For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every inhale there is an exhale, for every Joshua Miner there is a Tomas Adele. At least that's what I'd like to imagine. Tom was the love of my husband's life. I'm typing this up because their relationship is a story that needs to be told.
My husband and I, we've lived in the deep south for over forty years. Trying to abide by the way of God, country, and the Christian faith.
Some say Joshua's run of bad luck, started when he was diagnosed with cancer, but I think it started the day he disowned our daughter.
Christina was twenty-one a college graduate with a bright future. All she wanted was to marry her childhood best friend with her father by her side. And Chloe made her happy.
Perhaps it was wrong of me to not tell my husband ahead of time, that our daughter was a lesbian. What can I say? I had made a promise to my daughter.
Christina loved her father so much, she wanted to make him proud. Her big plan was to finish her STEM degree, securing a great job, all before flying Chloe out to San Francisco to propose. She wanted us to be there, but Josh refused to return her calls. And worse he forbade me from flying out there on my own.
"I'm not missing my only child's wedding!" I screamed at him, hurling a coffee mug at his head. The cup shattered against the door as he slammed it shut.
"We ain't got no children," he muttered. I watched from the kitchen window as he leaned against the sidewall, lighting up a cigarette before whistling for our dog.
Pup, a chocolate-brown nine-yearold bloodhound had been asleep in the corner of the kitchen in our small, trailer home. She got up from her dog bed, and easily exited out the back door, trotting to his side. Our dog was apparently welcome where I was not.
"You don't mean that!" I shouted from the window, not caring who could hear me.
"She chose to leave!" Josh shouted, his speech noticeably slurred. "Christina turned her back on God's country, to be a liberal feminist sinner."
"Fuck you!" I knew Josh only spoke like a southern preacher when he was already three sheets to the wind. "Our daughter is not a sinner, and Mississippi is hardly God's country!" Leaving him to his smoke, I proceeded to trash the house throwing out all his booze and cigarettes. Grant it I wasn't able to find it all, but Josh didn't even care. He passed out on the sofa and went to work the next day. I couldn't help but think that was my fault.
My husband worked on the military base, as a civilian contractor. He'd served his country for eight years but retired at the age of twenty-five when our daughter was born. It was a pretty sweet deal, Josh got to work on the base, hanging out with his friends all while working a normal 9-5 and avoiding deployment.
It was a rainy July afternoon when he was called to the base, to fix a light pole. That was what he did for a living; normal maintenance shit, that he could do while drunk, high or running on two hours of sleep. The job was a normal, run-of-the-mill part replacement.
I'd even seen him do it before. Usually, he rode a cherry-picker; those lifts where one person riding in the top can maneuver the entire vehicle into place. (It always looked kind of fun.) Josh also wore a harness and reflective gear (as required by OSHA safety standards.) Yet, somehow, in the middle of a summer storm, Josh fell over thirty feet, landing on his back. At least that's what the emergency room doctor told me.
Josh fractured his hip and broke his femur in three places. The pain was so unbearable he had to be put into a medicated coma. Over the next few weeks, his condition only got worse. First, he became sick with fever and it took forever for the doctors to find the source of infection. It seemed like they wanted to check everyplace except the brain. (If I was to wager a guess, it was a cost/insurance issue.)
In the end, he had late-stage brain cancer. That explained the fall: Josh had suffered a seizure, while working two-stories up, without a harness.
"Likely, he won't wake up," the doctor explained. Part of Josh's brain had died from lack of oxygen. If he survived he would be deaf and blind. That was only partially true. They didn't know my husband; Josh was a fighter and an absolute bad-ass.
My husband was taken out of the coma when it was determined he could breathe on his own. Josh struggled with pain, but what he wanted more than anything was to be allowed home. He worked so hard and after just two weeks of physical therapy, he was able to function with the aid of a walker.
If two weeks sounds like not very much for someone with a broken hip, leg fracture and terminal cancer- you'd be correct. After signing a crap-ton of waivers, recognizing that he was leaving the hospital in direct disregard for medical advice Josh was released into my care. A physical therapy/hospice nurse would be visiting once a day.
Why? I guess to make sure Josh was still alive and being cared for. I have to admit, it would have been easy to bash his head in with one of his whiskey bottles and bury his remains out in the nearby field.
Tomas Adele came to our home on a Friday. I can still remember the moment I greeted him at the door of our off-base trailer home. I always felt a certain measure of shame, greeting guests for the first time, in our glorified trailer park. Yet, strangely, there was something about Tom that put me at ease.
The therapist was an older man, Hispanic, or maybe Sicilian with sunkissed skin. Salt-and-pepper hair framed his distinct face; kind eyes, strong jaw, and sweet, fatherly, smile. He shook my hand with a firm, professional grip. "Hello, Miss, are you the wife of the patient? I know from his file that Mr. Miner also has a daughter."
"Yes, I'm Carolina Miner," I said with a smile. "Our daughter Christina lives out in California."
"Northern or southern?" he asked with enthusiasm. "I'm actually a UCLA graduate."
"Stanford, actually," I said inviting him inside. "She wants to go into political science."
"That's amazing, you and your husband must be so proud."
"I am, my husband not so much," I said under my breath. "Can I get you something to drink, coffee, soda, sweet tea?"
"I could go for some coffee."
"Sure," I said with a nod while adding water to my cheap Walmart coffee maker that looked like something I stole from a roadside motel. "I think Josh is asleep, I can wake him if you like."
"No, I think I'd like to talk a bit more." Tomas seemed to be looking around. For what? I was not sure.
"Ok," my voice went nervously higher. He had a clipboard and notepad, as if ready to report back to the hospital any signs of physical or emotional abuse.
Tom took a seat at the kitchen table. "Are there any land mines I should be aware of? Our therapy sessions are meant to be four hours long. The last thing I want would be to upset you or your husband."
His tone put me at ease. "I understand, thank you." For the next twenty minutes, we enjoyed plain black coffee, discussing my husband's current state. (Thankfully ignoring why I had no cream, milk or sugar.) Tom knew all about Josh's compromised hearing and sight as well as his current chemotherapy schedule. So, our conversation inevitably circled back to the subject of Christina.
