Paying It Forward

If Lion does his surgery, (he’s still trying to decide and probably will be until the day before) he will be out of commission for a while. I’ll be doing all of the heavy lifting around here. Chores that I don’t normally do will fall to me. All of the cooking, except for easy stick-it-in-the-microwave-and-push-the-button meals, will be done by me. I’m betting a lot of the meals I “cook” will be the easy microwave ones too.

Yesterday, Lion took a shower before dinner. For some reason, I was tired and I just planned to snooze until Lion was out of the shower and we’d both get dinner ready. Surprise! Next thing I knew, he was walking in the door with dinner. Oops. He said I looked so peaceful and he knows he won’t be able to do much after the surgery so he got dinner ready by himself and let me sleep. After dinner, he asked if I could take the garbage out since the remnants of the chicken we had would likely stink up the kitchen. As I was cleaning up the dishes, Lion took the garbage out. When I asked him why he said he was getting a head start on good deeds for when he can’t do them. Banking a little good will toward the time he assumes he’ll be a whining, in-pain Lion.

I told him that’s not how it works. Besides, he takes care of me when I’m sick. We take care of each other. He doesn’t have to build up any bonus points. If I ever need surgery that has a long rehab period, he’ll do the same for me. We are trying to think ahead to have things ready that can be done before the surgery, but not all things have that ability. We can’t for example, take the garbage out ahead of time. The can is empty until we create the garbage. We can’t buy all the food we’ll need for the next six months. We don’t have the storage and some of it needs to be fresh.

I appreciate everything Lion does around here. I’m sure I’ll appreciate it more when he can’t do it. But he doesn’t have to get on my good side by doing more things. He’s already on my good side. Right beside me.