It didn’t take me very long to get that loft condo into brilliant shape.
I was a determined little gal, and somehow, I developed this super-human ability to lift boxes and pieces of furniture that came close to outweighing me. But in a matter of two days of non-stop work, I turned that loft into a home.
And even though it was very hard to admit to Lou, all of his man furniture looked stunning in the loft. It gave the place a British West Indies style, and every single thing that made it to Miami looked as if it was hand-selected for that condo.
Out of every place I’ve ever lived with Lou, I’m pretty certain that the Aventura loft will go down as my favorite.
But the fact that our things looked so nice in the space is only a small part of the reason for that. The larger reason is because Lou and I appreciated having a home so much more than we ever had before. Being able to wake up at sunrise, brew some coffee in our own coffee pot, and sip it out of our favorite mugs were simple pleasures that would often make me tear up with joy.
Having a place to call home was huge for me, and I remember feeling such a sense of relief. But there was still very little real relief for Lou.
There were days during our first couple of weeks in our new place when Lou’s health left me fretting. Lou had gotten so thin and weak, and, he never had a day when he wasn’t bleeding — albeit, some days were worse than others. He had to rally so hard every day to get up the strength to go into the office to get some meaningful work done. But most days he was only good for a half day — which was even a stretch at times.
One day, he called me after just a couple of hours at the office. He said he was really bleeding, and he needed to come home and take a nap. I remember it was raining that day, and when he got home, Lou didn’t even have the energy to climb the steps up to our bedroom to change into dry clothes. So he stretched out on the sofa on the main floor and I pulled a cozy pair of socks onto his feet.
As I was covering him with a blanket, he took my hand and whispered:“Baby, I’m so sorry for all of this… But you’re the only reason I can’t give up. If it weren’t for you, I know wouldn’t be able to keep going.”
His words stunned me…
I didn’t want to keep him from sleeping, so I just sat down on the cold marble floor while Lou held my hand and slipped away into a restless nap. I watched the rain water wash down the outside of the windows. It helped me cry without shedding too many more tears of my own.
There were so many times in the early parts of my marriage when I wanted to be Lou’s everything, but I knew I wasn’t. His son’s had his heart, too, and there were times that I felt like I’d never know the kind of love I believed I deserved from Lou. But in Lou’s honest and vulnerable confession, I suddenly realized how much I was loved all along. But the same words that made my heart melt also frightened me.
What if I let Lou down?
What if I couldn’t fight enough for the both of us for much longer?
That’s when I realized how seldom I truly reflected on what our circumstances were doing to Lou and his will to keep going. Up to this point, I don’t think I’d really considered the deeper losses Lou was coping with because I was too busy trying to keep us afloat with my own efforts. I hadn’t dropped in to consider how it felt to be Lou. His body was letting him down, and so was the world around him — yet somehow, he believed he could count on me and my love for him to get him through.
