"As a police wife, I learn every day the value of patience and understanding." Unknown
Unknown.
I can imagine Pat saying this. She was a police wife for twenty-eight years before I retired in 2019. She did the things a police wife does. She sacrificed the way police wives sacrifice.
Uh huh. What do you think she said to her friends, her family members? How do you think "patience and understanding" is defined in a world where her husband worked long and odd hours that wore on him? What sort of things does she think about while her guy is somewhere doing things that often frightened her beyond description?
Well...
I suppose I could go through the usual litany - I worked weird hours, many weekends, holidays... She managed the household, kept the kids quiet and busy, did the menu planning. She put up with the crankiness, the emotional roller coaster the job put us all on. She watched me stare at a pager during birthday parties and knew by the look on my face I had to leave. She was there when the phone rang at 3AM. She was there when a co-worker was killed, and attended the funeral alone while I attended to family issues in New York.
The night my dad passed away we found out as we parked our car so she could march in a parade as a member of a clown brigade. That's right. She put on her costume and makeup, and a happy face for her colleagues and she did what she had to do. My dad would have been proud of her.
I flew to New York several days later, to be with my mom. The first morning I was there I received a call from pregnant daughter Katy from Michigan - she was in the hospital. There was a chance she might lose her baby. There was a chance she might not survive, either. Both were in critical condition.
I called Pat, at what was zero-dark in Colorado. "I need you to be awake, Pat. I need you to understand what I'm going to tell you."
"Okay, umm." There was a pause, followed by a series of questions - what hospital, who is with her, what happens, now? Finally...
"Do what you have to do. Let me know how I can help."
That same week we moved out of one house to another. She got the final steps done - the closing, the moving out, the moving in - while I tended to my mom, and Katy (it worked out. Like the cop's kid she is, she did what had to be done. Graham is almost 16 and you'd never know he got off to such a dynamic start).
It was Christmas time. Moving (with help from lots of friends and family), she got the dogs into kennels and joined me in New York. After the funeral she was staying behind in New York to help my mom during the transition. I returned home... Home.
I had left one house and returned to a different one. The night...early morning hours...I walked in the front door it was the first time as "home." She'd been sick when she left, but there were still decorations put up, stockings hung. It was, in fact, home in a real sense.
We had work ups and downs. I had a pretty spectacular one. "You know, if you'd talked to me I'd have told you that was a bad idea." That's all she said. No recriminations, no angsting. We moved on. Some months later, it was her turn. "Thank God you got in trouble," she said. "It was good practice. We know how to deal with my stuff."
It's what a cop's wife does. Identify the issue, adopt coping mechanism, enable solution. Rinse, repeat.
Even when retirement is interrupted by a rare and virulent form of cancer.
I left for the hospital... Yeah, there's a story or two.
There was the "Don't dig up the big box of plutonium, Mark" moment that still makes us laugh. The poor doctor was so earnest and we - both of us - laughed and laughed. The cop's wife, with the cop's off-beat sense of humor. Cancer? Well yeah, but there's no reason you can't wield a sense of humor against it.
There was the clear PET scan that made us celebrate. Only one thing to worry about...now. And, there was a dog moment.
We were given detailed instructions about...everything. I was wearing the clothing they recommended, we had arranged our day around the out-patient procedure. Daughter Katy was headed down from Windsor to sit with Pat. It would be simple, straightforward. I was otherwise healthy, I'd tolerate things. There were COVID complications - it was October 2020 - but we were managing them. As a final act prior to leaving, I let the dogs out.
When we let the dogs in at 4:45 AM... They'd both been skunked. And, of course, when the dogs get skunked, everyone shares in the experience. We had to quickly de-skunk them. We had to de-skunk us. How did she react?
Like a cop's wife. Assign tasks. Assemble the necessary supplies. Set priorities. Implement.
Somehow, we arrived at the hospital on time. I was radioactive for a week thereafter, meaning that I stayed sequestered in my office, sleeping on the love seat bed, while she did everything. Oh, the peirogies...
Recovery was bumpy, there were more surgeries. Still, she was there to do what needed to be done. And now...
Tough beginning to the weekly chemo routine. Placement of an IV port. The uncertainty of an unproven new drug that gives hope, but maybe not much else. Was this just preamble to losing her husband?
The recent PET scan suggests the chemo is working better than expected. I read the results off of my patient portal and grasped the strange, wonderful implications immediately. I sent off a few quick text messages and waited for her to come home from dog training. Then my wife of 34 years, my best friend, the love of my life and I embraced and cried together. A lot.
"Okay," she said, wiping tears. "So, what happens, now?"
Because she's a cop's wife.
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