Bonding Through Blah

Marriage and family.

Not a fairy tale. Princesses never get sick, though they do fall into death-like sleep on occasion. Princes have a knack of arriving at just the right time to perform the necessary life-saving deed, sometimes requiring a battle with evil, but mainly, prevailing by planting a kiss on the fading princess in time to revive her.

This past weekend, we made it through a surgery (relatively minor, husband healing nicely), and four cases of the flu hitting within hours of each other.  Bam-bam-bam-bam!  The Quadruple Threat Flu of 2013.

We had planned the surgery, knew what to expect, and prepared accordingly. The flu hit without warning, marched along and took down each one of us systematically. We had no way to fight it, and even attempted to sequester healthy family members to try to thwart forces of fever and sickness from reaching them, to no avail.

Doesn't everybody have weekends, weeks, months or even longer seasons like these?

These times try our souls. They demand our patience and our energy even when we have little to offer. To feel absolutely wretched and bereft of any physical strength, yet still find a way to stumble to the aid of another family member means something big.

These times invoke the "in sickness and in health" vow, making me acutely aware of just what it means to give selflessly no matter how I feel, no matter how much I'd rather stay burrowed in and almost-comfortable on the couch after wrangling blankets from every bed and storage chest to divide among the fallen.

These times can bring out our worst.  I, for one, felt indescribably awful and haven't felt worse than this in recent memory.  I can't meter the illness level of the rest of my family, but my selfishness would like me to think I suffer more than anyone else.  Everyone else feels the same way, of course.  Sicker than thou.  "No one feels worse than I feel, so stop whining," resonates in our heads.

Even with our individual states of mind focused inward, we banded together in our queasy, exhausted, dizzy and shaky forms and tried to help whomever had a need.  We bonded in our suffering.  We felt each other's pain in a very direct way.  We pulled ourselves up a bit more than we might in different circumstances, not waiting to feel waited on because it wouldn't happen in our desired time frame. Misery does love company, and we had a wonderful weekend full of that kind of communion.

Near the end of our road to recovery, three of us benefited from the serving strategies of the youngest among us.  Our almost-12-year old son had taken the first hit of illness and recovered while the rest of still had a day or more to go.  For almost a full day, he filled water glasses, opened pill bottles for his dad and dispensed his doses, gathered and distributed blankets, passed tissue boxes, answered phones and prepared his own meals.  One meal consisted of Nutella and cookie sticks, but a hero does deserve some leeway when saving the day for the infirm and suffering.

Our boy's example of selfless giving gave us pride in his empathetic abilities.  His independence and sense of responsibility let us see glimpses of the future.  He helped fill our needs that day, but filled so much more than water glasses and miscellaneous requests.  He filled our hearts with love received in his actions.  He filled our minds with thoughts for the future.  He filled our souls with the gifts of a servant, the kind he has always given when a need arises. 

As we emerge from the fog of illness this week, we will remember the experience ... maybe even a little bit fondly.  None of us hopes to repeat the Quadruple Threat Flu of 2013, but we will recall the time together with less memory of the misery and more memory of the company.  We will remember that we bucked up and rose to the occasion, even when we did not feel up to the challenge.  We will think about the giving and less about the discomfort.  None of us held a position of royalty, but served each other out of our best, the same as we would for someone of high position.  We set aside our frailty to do for someone else in need.

I wish everyone a time of bonding like the one we had this past weekend.  I suggest skipping the flu experience and find other ways to serve each other.  Worth it.  Totally.

Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. ~~Deuteronomy 15:10

Brushes with the rich and famous 1 – Royalty

During my career I have had the honour (sometimes dubious) of meeting the royals on a number of occasions. To be honest, all of these meeting have left an indelible mark in my mind, and on one occasion my buttocks, as I will explain. In fact I might as well explain that one first.

I was based in Zambia at the time they were hosting the Commonwealth conference which was to be opened by the queen. One of my jobs was to ‘look after’ the crew of the two giant Hercules cargo aircraft that fly out in advance with the Queen’s essential supplies. In those days (and possibly even now) everything the Queen uses, eats and drinks was all flown down in advance under considerable security by the UK armed forces.

The aircrews had a great time. Although Zambia is one of the most fertile countries in the world it was ravaged by shortages of even the most basic foods and almost everything had to be imported. Only problem was that it was almost impossible to arrange and here is where the crews used to come in. I would be prepared to wager that at least 25% of the aircraft payload consisted of cigarettes, apples, butter, oil and other such important staples. These were used to both sell and act as guaranteed invitation material to any party or event in the country during their stay. There was one expatriate lady who was famous for doing practically anything for a few sticks of celery

Anyway, the point behind this story is that I was allowed a sneak peek at the Queen’s ‘treasure trove’ of supplies and amongst it was two toilet seats. Apparently she always takes her own plus an aide that knows how to fit them on any type of toilet appliance. I am afraid I could not resist trying them . Out of respect to the monarchy I kept my trousers on but unfortunately my belt got stuck. I struggled and struggled until I popped out but for the next few weeks I had an indelible bruise to remind me of my heresy. Every time I see the Queen now I think of what we have in common!

Since that occasion I have had quite a few brushes with royalty including being studiously ignored by Prince Andrew, winked at by Diana, sworn at by Princess Anne and laughed at/with by Prince Harry but my most contentious was an altercation with Prince Philip. My wife still totally disagrees with me about this but I think his highness was totally out of order! After all he is known as a no nonsense, say what you like, approachable type of person. I wonder who you think was right.

We had been invited by Emirates Airline to attend a charity cricket match in the grounds of Windsor School between the airline and the Lords Taverners charity team. All the great and the good were due to attend the event and the guest of honour was to be Prince Philip (their next door neighbour). He swept into the ground and immediately worked the guests up into a frenzy of excitement by ‘chatting’ freely to all. He then headed off to his specially allotted seat and drank his usual bottles of brown beer. It was all very nice and a very English kind of event.

All went well until lunch. I was genuinely very honoured to find we had been put on the top table (of twelve place settings) just two seats away from the Prince with only Mike Gatting (the cricketer) and his charming wife between us. Prince Philip turned up last and then there was a rather long and embarrassing silence. Nobody was being introduced so I spoke up and told him who I and my wife were. It was as if I had thrown a hand grenade on the table. An audible gasp came from the Prince. He recoiled back and threw his hands in the air. His equerry finally appeared and manhandled me aside. “You NEVER speak to the Prince before being spoken to first” he muttered menacingly. “He will be in an awful mood now” he added. And so it was. Prince Philip sat down and would barely utter a word to anyone. Can this be the man who has made so many gaffes and unwise comment over the years I thought?

My wife reckons it was my fault. Do you? My view is that, in this modern world, politeness supersedes traditional etiquette. Needless to say that despite him being the husband of our Queen he will not be on my Christmas card list this year. Maybe someone told him about that toilet seat?