An Ugly Truth – Polishing Poop & Swapping Shoes

I am a glass half full kind of guy; anyone familiar with my books and blogs knows that regardless of what I am faced with, I tend to look for the positives, the opportunities, in every situation. Furthermore, I firmly believe that expressing gratitude on a regular basis, focusing on what we like and appreciate, rather than focusing on what we do not like and do not appreciate, is the fast track to a happy life. Not everyone shares my sunny perspective, sometimes quite the opposite actually.

I talked about two pivotal experiences in my life in The “Zero’s Journey”: my near fatal ruptured appendix in 2001, and the complete loss of my chosen livelihood and cherished lifestyle in late 2012. I wrote about my against all odds recovery from my burst appendix and keeping my promise to my son, who was in kindergarten at the time, to attend his end of the year field trip to the Erie Zoo a few short weeks later. Then, I also wrote about all that I learned and all that I became following our financial calamity in 2012. However, like most things in life, there’s always more than one side to every story. My wife, my partner for the past 30 years, came away from those very same events, with a very different perspective and a very different lasting effect as well.

Following my near fatal ruptured appendix, my wife felt scared and all alone. She had momentarily faced the very real prospect of becoming a widow with two small children left to raise, and then the aftermath of my illness during my recovery. She was stuck with caring for me for about a month, dressing my incision, until my surgical wounds finished healing. She was also tasked with dismantling our chiropractic office at the time, coordinating the hauling and either storing or purging of its contents. She spent several months living in terror, wondering if I would ever be able to work and provide for our family again.

When the insurance industry rewrote all of the rules concerning chiropractic in the state of Pennsylvania in 2012, and our once thriving practice completely collapsed, it was deja vu all over again for her. She was forced to leave our office, where she had worked as my office manager, to go to work for a medical practice so that we would not lose our home. I did not find my job at the Housing Authority until one year later. And when I finally closed my office for good, three years later still, after filing for bankruptcy and losing the office building we owned, she was again tasked with helping me to coordinate the hauling and subsequent storing or purging of its contents while I recovered from another hernia surgery.

As a consequence, my wife never found a rainbow at the bottom of either of these events. From her perspective, I failed in my duty to her as her husband and provider, not once but twice. Her mom and two of her subsequent therapists share her point of view completely. The fact that she has to work at all is a constant reminder to her of how badly I failed her. All of this has left her very scarred and scared, to say the least. Her greatest, and ever present, fear is getting stuck having to take care of me financially and/or physically as we enter our twilight years. As I am not so slowly losing my ability to walk, due to an old spinal cord injury, her concerns are not necessarily unfounded.

So which of our perspectives is the “right” one? Who’s to say? And who’s to even say that there is a right one? Until you have experienced something for yourself, by walking in another’s shoes, there’s no way to say for certain.

As for those who might be wondering, this blog is being shared with all of you with her blessing.

by jon m ketcham