You may have read this already—I linked to it recently, and some of you may have read it when I originally posted it back in April. In any case, I’m reposting it with an addendum.
It was one year ago today that Mr. Weebles finished radiation and chemotherapy. He is one of the most extraordinary people I have ever had the privilege to know.
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This may be my very last blog entry because Mr. Weebles may kill me after he reads it. He’s a private guy, and he probably won’t love that I’m devoting an entire entry to him. But I’m doing it anyway. (What can I say, honey, you knew what you were getting into when you married me.)
I’ve mentioned Mr. Weebles in many entries here, and you’ve even seen comments from the man himself. Now I want to tell you more about him.
The first thing you need to know about Mr. Weebles that he is truly awesome. He doesn’t even know how awesome he is, which makes him even more awesome.
We’ve been married for almost 6 years—our anniversary is nigh—and we’ve been together for about 8 years total. Before I met Mr. Weebles, I had pretty rotten luck with relationships. During my dating life I encountered textbook examples of almost every disorder listed in the DSM-IV.
And because dating in NYC is only slightly less painful than tweezing your legs, I decided to cast as wide a net as possible to meet guys. I went online. That’s how I met Mr. Weebles. In fact, I saw his profile and wrote down his profile name so that I could write to him. But he beat me to it—I got a message from him the next day. And that’s how it started.
I knew pretty quickly that he was The One. Many, many years ago I asked my mother, “How do you know when a guy is the right one?” And she said, “You’ll just know.” At the time I thought it was a load of horse shit (sorry Mom), but of course she was right. With Mr. Weebles, I just knew.
He and I are very similar—sometimes when two people are so much alike it can cause friction, but in our case it’s just comical. One of us will say, “I want to use the brain today, you got to use it yesterday!” because we finish each other’s sentences and thoughts so often that it creeps me out in the best possible way. We get annoyed by the same things (although to be fair, he doesn’t get nearly as annoyed as I do), our neuroses compliment each other’s, we care about the same things, and we have the same sensibilities and opinions about how life should be.
He puts up with my crankiness. He tolerates the fact that I’m a Yankee fan (he is not). He takes it in stride when I’m randomly bitchy. He humors me when I do silly things. He talks me off the ledge when I’m really upset or worried. And I’m very lucky to have found a guy who can cook, is handy around the house, takes out the trash more often than I do, and often gets my coffee ready for me in the morning when I’m running late. Plus, he’s 6’3″ so he can reach stuff on the top shelves.
Mr. Weebles is a very funny guy. He doesn’t just make me laugh—he makes me cackle. I don’t know how he thinks of half the stuff he says. His brain just works so quickly, and it works in amazing ways. He’ll make some off-the-cuff comment about something on television or whatever, and invariably it will be the cleverest, funniest thing I ever heard. (Until the next time he says something clever and funny.) I always wonder, “How does he DO that??” And he has one of the most creative minds of anyone I know. If you could attach a megaphone to his head and hear him think of things, you’d laugh your ass off at how funny he is and how many great ideas he has.
He’s the kindest, most decent soul I’ve ever known. I don’t mean that in a treacly sort of way. I mean that he is truly the best person I know. He has an extremely honest, caring, and thoughtful nature. There is more integrity in his toenail clippings than many people have in their entire bodies. And he has a great deal of compassion. Stories about injustice upset him deeply. He’s far more savvy about world events and politics than I am, so he knows about all the awful things going on here and around the world. When he hears about the latest corruption scandal or about people who are being mistreated in some way, he gets riled up to the extent that you’d think it happened to him personally. And I mean that as a compliment; it’s one thing to think, “Gee, what a shame,” but it’s another thing to contemplate how these miscarriages of justice affect us all somehow. Mr. Weebles does that. If he were ever to inflict pain on someone, it would be because that person deserved it in spades.
But the acid test, of course, for determining whether people are truly good, is seeing them interact with animals. When Mr. Weebles and I first started dating, I had a cat whom I’ll call Kitty Emeritus because she’s in the Great Catnip Patch in the Sky now (although she never did like catnip so I’m not sure how thrilled she is about that). Kitty Emeritus was a fearless cat with a ridiculously well-developed sense of entitlement. You had to work hard to impress her. She was friendly and tolerant of every human I ever saw her with, and she usually gravitated towards men (I was so proud of her for that). But she loved Mr. Weebles. And the three cats we have now—the Weeblettes—also love him like crazy. They climb all over him and follow him around the house. And as anyone who has ever had a cat knows, when you have the love and trust of a cat, it’s because you’ve earned it. Mr. Weebles has earned it and then some. He’s the best Kitty Daddy a feline could hope for.
But wait! There’s more!
I learned that the awesome Mr. Weebles is more extraordinary than I even knew already. I found out in a way that people shouldn’t have to find out, but sometimes these things happen.
Last year Mr. Weebles was diagnosed with cancer, at the age of 40. Ironically—and cruelly—this cancer was a long-term side effect of the radiation treatment he received for an entirely different type of cancer when he was 21. Last summer he went through surgery, radiation (different type of radiation than the first time, fortunately), and chemotherapy, and now he’s doing great with an excellent prognosis. Overall it could have been much, much worse, but it still sucked pretty royally. For those of you who have cared for sick loved ones, you know how awful it is to see them suffer. It was brutal, knowing there wasn’t much I could do while Mr. Weebles went through treatment. All I could do was focus on the light at the end of the tunnel and keep him as comfortable and as stress free as possible in the meantime.
What I discovered, though, was that Mr. Weebles is one tough hombre. Even tougher than I thought. He’s fucking badass. The radiation and chemo regimen he endured was nasty. He hated going through treatment, but he did it. And he did it with class and dignity.
If I were in his shoes, I would have been spitting fire. Having cancer? Again? At the age of 40? Because of the treatment for the first cancer? I would have been mad at the entire world. I would have been a raging, self-pitying, sobbing basketcase and I would have been mean as hell.
But not Mr. Weebles. He was very upset, of course. And as far as I’m concerned he would have had every right to be a raging, self-pitying, sobbing basketcase himself. But he just has a different perspective on things—maybe because he’s been through this before, maybe not. Doesn’t matter. He just did what he had to do. And he was still polite to everyone. He was like a cowboy who rides into town, gets into a vicious shootout with the bad guys, drives them out of town, and then tips his hat, riddled with bullet holes, saying, “Bye, folks, be seein’ ya.” Fucking badass.
Watching him go through such an ordeal gave me an even greater appreciation for him and everything he’s about. I’m insanely proud of him. He inspires me to be a better human being. The world needs more people like Mr. Weebles.
If I could just get him to wear a combat uniform or some sort of Victorian gentleman’s outfit, he’d be perfect.
And now, here’s the list of my Most Exquisite Pains, in no particular order:
Fear No Weebles 