When Karma Kisses You On The Forehead

When you are married for a long time, you act out the different roles life gives you. We start as friends and lovers, become partners and spouses, and sometimes even caretakers. We make it through weddings and funerals, we celebrate success and we share losses and defeat.

My husband and I had our share of hard times, but also periods of great happiness, luck, and fortune -in more ways than just financially.

The vows we take when we are young, we often live out. In sickness and health, in poverty and wealth. There is no solid recipe for relationship success. Love and humor seem to be a solid foundation and of course honesty and trust. Big words, even bigger to live by.

For the last four years, I watched my husband be strong when he felt his weakest. I watched him work with stoical determination under circumstances he didn’t deserve. We fell into a rut of just making it -and not just financially. Pushing through hard times is something we all do, when we have to.

We are so much stronger than we think we are. We adjust so quickly to the bad -as we do to the good. Maybe that’s how the innocent survive years of being incarcerated. To not lose your mind, and to not lose hope becomes the main focus.

The love of my life has aged more than he should have over the last four years. Physically, he recovered from the surgeries he had to have, but the burden that he felt on his shoulder was hard to live with. I saw his spirit change right in front of my eyes. The Workmen’s Com nightmare we lived in took its toll.

His laughter which I adore and the sparkle in his eyes that brings me instant happiness were still there, but distant all of a sudden. His laughter was heard not as often, and the sparkle in his eyes was reserved for very special moments. The goofiness my old man still has went away.

Last Monday he went to work, it was supposed to be his last week with the company he worked for the last eleven years -the last week after he had put in his 2-week notice, the final step when Workmen’s Comp is over.

An hour later, at 7 am he called me, disbelieve in his voice. “They are sending me home, I won’t be on the schedule for the rest of the week either.”

Not honoring a 2-week notice, isn’t that something you normally do if an employee treated you wrong, or caused trouble?

I didn’t say much, I could hear the hurt in my husband’s voice.

“I go and drop off my application. I have it with me,” he said and so he drove to his new employer, he had filled out the paperwork the night before.

I didn’t know what to say, there was too much on my mind. My husband would be sitting at home for one week, that was the last thing he needed right now.

An hour later I got a text. “I am already on the clock, I have to take a 10-panel drug test. I will be home in a few hours” it read.

(Who’s clock? What? Don’t confuse me Monday, first thing in the morning.)

Later on that afternoon, he walked into the door with a big smile. His cheeks were red, what can I say, he is Irish and it shows. His eyes were sparkling and a few minutes later he told me everything that had happened in such a short time. There was so much enthusiasm in his voice. He sounded happy.

His new employer had welcomed him with open arms when he had walked in so unannounced first thing in the morning. The owner pad him on his shoulder and welcomed him, other employees he knew shook his hand or hugged him. Every night this week he came home, all bubbly and chattering about the day. His laughter, the spark in his eyes, and his enthusiasm, all came back in such a short time.

The old man, who I thought was getting ready to take an early retirement soon is gone, instead, I got my husband back. The last four years fell off his shoulders and the heavy burden he felt just disappeared.

Then yesterday evening, like the cherry on a beautiful ice cream sundae, the phone rang and another former co-worker, this time from the upper management level, now working for another competitor, made him an offer.

When he hung up the phone and shared the part of the conversation I didn’t hear, I was stunned. My husband will be 65 in just a month. Isn’t that the age when so many still try to work but they get pushed out into early retirement? Wasn’t his possible early retirement the plan C we had talked about ourselves? Does he know how fortunate he is?

We always talk about bad karma, but there is good karma too, and it just kissed my husband on his forehead and I have a front-row seat in the play of life, watching beautiful things unfold right in front of me. My husband deserves it. He has been through hell.

As for me? I am happy, his eyes are sparkling again!

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