Spring of nineteen seventy seven was rather warm and our home was cooled by window air units. The early season heat prompted me to consider installing an additional air conditioner in the house to make certain that there would be no hot spots when summer came. Mike agreed with my thinking, but we had to do a bit of electrical work to make it happen. Mike’s Uncle Bob agreed to help us with the project, so one Saturday he and Mike went to work. 

Uncle Bob, a retired master electrician, had some problems with his heart so his wife, Elsie was worried about him doing too much. Mike and I assured her that we would look after her Bobby who had a tendency to overdo his efforts toward perfection in his work. Mike had worked often enough with his uncle to understand all of the instructions he was commanding him to do. Much of the process involved pulling wire through the attic and dropping it down behind wood paneling and the outside wall. It was a hot and tedious task for Mike, but in the end the air conditioner was cooling the house wonderfully and Uncle Bob was not even the least bit over stressed. 

In the irony of ironies, it was Aunt Elsie who died of a heart attack in her kitchen only a few weeks later. She had gone to church that morning and then served Bob a lovely lunch. As she was finishing cleaning the dishes she dropped to the floor. She was gone by the time the ambulance arrived, leaving everyone shocked and dismayed.

Aunt Elsie was the glue of the family, a matriarch who was so sweet and kind that she made everyone feel special and important. She had been so lively and energetic that her sudden demise was shocking. A great gaping void opened up in her absence.

Elsie had come to the United States with her parents and siblings from Newcastle, England shortly before World War I. Her family had settled on the northside of Houston in a wooded area not far from downtown. She was lovely and refined, a rock of compassion. She and Uncle Bob were still like two teenagers in love even though they had been married for years. While Elsie never had children she was beloved by her brothers, nieces, nephews neighbors and many friends. Each Christmas she hosted a magnificent traditional dinner in her Victorian home in the Heights that was the highlight of the season. None of us could imagine life without her. 

Mike and I were so overcome with grief that I hardly noticed that he was not feeling well on the day of Aunt Elsie’s funeral. Her death was such an emotional shock that we had all gone inside ourselves to deal with the pain of losing her. Later in the evening I realized that Mike was burning up with fever. He had also developed strange lesions on different parts of his body. He called the family doctor and secured an appointment for the following day. The visit was not anymore enlightening because the doctor said that he had never seen such symptoms before. He sent Mike to an infectious disease specialist who post haste admitted Mike to St. Luke’s Hospital for tests to determine what was causing his symptoms.

We were shocked to learn the Mike had a rather rare disease not often seen in the Houston area called blastomycosis. It was a fungal disease that is more common in areas near the Mississippi River. How he contracted the strange illness was anyone’s guess. The thinking was that he may have encountered it on a business trip that he had recently taken in that area or perhaps he encountered spores while working in the attic to install the wiring for the air conditioner. Whatever the source may have been, the treatment was chemotherapy with a drug called Amphotericin B. Mike would get the infusions three days each week at the hospital and then return home for the weekend. It would take many months to complete the process. The doctor was grimly honest that he seemed to have diagnosed the disease early enough to subdue it with powerful drugs, but indicated that there were no guarantees that Mike would survive.

Neither Mike nor I were I were yet thirty years old. We had been married just under ten years and had two children. In that space of time we had literally grown up together. I worried that our love story was going to be cut tragically short. I thought of my thirty year old mother losing her husband of only eleven years. Somehow I felt every terrible fear that she must have experienced. I worried for my girls and wondered how the three of us would make it if Mike died. Like my mother I had to demonstrate strength that I was not feeling for the sake of my daughters. On nights when Mike stayed in the hospital the girls and I all slept together in one room. It initially happened that way because they would sneak into my bedroom after I had fallen asleep and make pallets on the floor next to my bed. Maryellen would soothe her little sister who did not fully understand what was happening other than to sense that it must be something bad. It became our silent ritual for the long months that seemed endlessly brutal.

My friends were wonderful about helping me by watching the girls while I went to be with Mike at the hospital. My mother boosted my spirits and provided me with wise advice whenever I began to fall apart. She told me that emergency situations required someone to be the adult in the room and that person was not always the individual with the most experience with life. I understood what she was telling me and her when her advice was repeated by our family priest, Father John Perusina. I had to at least pretend to be tough and optimistic because my girls needed me as much as Mike did. I was walking a tightrope once again, finding a hidden part of me that kept our little family going while I balanced myself to keep us all from tumbling into an abyss. The outpouring of love from everyone kept me going even in times when I thought that I was surely going to break apart. 

Mike was his stoic self, joking with the nurses and hoping that his veins would not collapse before the treatments ended. On some days he had horrific reactions to the medication. On other days a special nurse from Texas Children’s Hospital had to come with pediatric needles to get his IV going. He lost weight and his hair turned gray even though he was not yet thirty. I tried to pretend that I was not afraid. A parade of visitors came to keep Mike company among them was his buddy from high school, Larry, who joked that he would have brought some Green Light to kill the fungus, but he was going to keep that cure in abeyance in case it was needed later.

The whole situation felt so bizarre, but I knew that we had to stay optimistic. A big wedding was coming. All of us would have roles to play as my brother, Michael, pledged his vows to the love of his life. Somehow I had to believe that we were going to be fine just as we had been when my father died and when my mother had been so ill. As it turned out, with lots of loving support we would indeed survive once again.