My wife, Nicole Dumas, is my hero in real life.  She has an indomitable spirit, for real.   She was simple when I met her and she is simple still.  We are not at all alike in character.   I complicate everything, she simplifies it.  

We met two weeks before my 30th birthday.  She had just turned 39.  It was a Friday in mid February.  I was starting a new job on the following Monday and I thought I would stop by to check out my new office and meet the people.  I was returning to Montreal that very day after five years in exile in Ottawa and various parts. Though I should not have been, five years earlier I was caught by surprise by an instantaneous and completely unexpected end to my marriage to the girl next door.  Someday I'll write about those years.  Enough to say that I tried hard to destroy myself with drugs and alcohol, moved away and carried on generally very poorly. Eventually I wearied of it, my body and soul said no more.  I went back to the real world, a step at a time. I cleaned up.  The scars were deep but I survived.  One day I decided I wanted to go home again, if I could find it.  I missed home.  That was when the chance to move to Montreal with a very cool job materialized.  I took it.  

She was sitting in a glass walled wood lined board room, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and a crystal tumbler filled with a couple of fingers of scotch, in front of her.  She was wearing a tight black velvet dress and she was gorgeous.  I don't remember the rest of the office visit at all, as if it did not happen though I am sure it must have.  She invited me to sit and have a drink with her.  Of course I did.  Eventually, somehow, I convinced her to take me home with her.  I did promise to make her the best steak she ever had, and she assures me that I did indeed do that.  Just as I was closing the door and leaving peacefully, if somewhat confused, much later that night, she grabbed my arm and pulled me back inside, and, that was that.  I never did leave.

One day led to another.  After a while we jokingly started to make weekly contracts, then monthly.  We both had nothing at all when we met.  Nothing.  Nicole had a little bit of cheap furniture.  We had no debts, no assets.  After a while we decided to team up 100%.  No mine, no yours, just ours.  We had a lot of fun together.  Nicole is very bright.  Her bookshelves were full, rooms of them.  Four languages.  She is, was, proficient in three.  My family and friends grew to like her.  I grew to love her.  She comes from hard times.  I don't know anybody who had a more horrific childhood than she had.  How in the world the sunny bright woman with the simple and open heart came to be is beyond my kin.  After a while, when we knew we could count on each other until death do us part, we decided to get married.  It's the proper corporate thing to do.  


That was followed by fifteen years or so of smooth, smooth sailing featuring a lot of good times, laughter and warmth.


I thought that we were drifting apart.  Walls that were not there before, were.  Doubts, uncertainty, uneasiness.  Thats what I thought.  Then, like you first were able to describe it when you found words again, your brain blew up.  Poof.  Just like that.  I was there with you.  It took me hours to understand and react properly.  Lord knows how I wish I had reacted faster.  Twenty hours after the stroke happened I understood exactly what had happened to you and I was full of despair.  All of the uncertainty was gone.  I wanted you so badly it burned.  Such clarity I have not felt before or since.  I was going to do anything, anything I could.  You were gone!  Erased! Major brain damage.  Broca center destroyed.  Frontal lobe severe damage. Extensive left side damage.

She worked very, very hard for a long time.  I did too.  Daily for about three years. We did everything together as much as possible, weaving therapy into our daily activities.  I got a part time job, she came to work with me. She proved them wrong.  We had a lot of help.  I had Nicole back.  She suffers from aphasia.  She kicks the shit out of it mostly.  We make it fun.  We laugh at aphasia a lot. 


We sailed smooth again for almost a decade and then the world slowly began to change again.  Our roles are changing.  She is rising to the occasion brilliantly.  I feel bad that she has this added pressure.  I think she mostly feels like doing something nice for me.  I love her to bits. She makes me feel good, good, good.