His Heart

Most of us have a sensory point in our bodies that worry can attack and weaken to illness. For my husband  his heart was his tender trap. His love and passions ran deep and if he chose you to love, his heart would deny you nothing. Melvin loved me and his sons, more than he loved himself.
All of us who raise children know that in the process of their growth, they make mistakes. We made mistakes and continue to make mistakes,but when you're young and before the synapses of our brains complete the connection, we make silly decisions. Earth, in trying to find himself, went this way and that in trying to find out who he was, and on one occasion Melvin's heart attacked him out of the sheer frustration at not being able to help Earth avoid a phase of his growth. That was his first heart attack and Wind and Fire were there.
The second time his heart gave way was at a time he was happy and felt he'd reached a fine time in his life, Wind was there to rescue him.
After the second attack, Melvin knew, guarding his heart, with the advice a doctor gives, was to be adhered to in great measure, and that he did.
When the boys reached manhood, crying was no longer an acceptable outlet of emotion unless it was a sheer devastation at a personal level. Most men don't cry, I get that, but toward the end of his life, I saw my husband express his sorrow through tears.
When Earth was ill as a child, Melvin cried; when his first wife died, Melvin cried, but tears were few and far between after that.
When he found out I was ill, he cried, this too was personal from the storehouse of love in his heart.
Then, one morning, we lay watching a special broadcast of a storm in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, and Melvin sits straight up. He is enthralled in the story.  I passively listen, knowing that he will interpret the events for me as he always did. I begin to ask questions, but get no response. "Poo what's goin' on," I say. He's trying to respond, but there is hesitation in his voice. I sit up, start my banter, look in his face and he is weeping. I rub his back, speechless. He finally musters, Look at how they are treating my people." The scene was of the survivors being packed into the arena with seemingly no help on the way. This sight touched his heart. He was not ashamed of this display and I thought no less of him. I was moved by his compassion for people he would never know.
Melvin's heart was so big:

• He witnessed a man in an accident who was thrown from his car, Melvin stayed with him until help arrived;
• A neighbor was stranded on the freeway, he turned around and helped her with her car, she tells the story to this day;
• When his sister was very ill in California, he dropped everything and went to take care of her;
• While I worked, he stood in the gap to help with my ailing mother;
• When our nieces and nephews needed chaperons to athletic events, he obliged them;
• When we went to the Bahamas he helped take care of my invalid uncle;
• He accompanied his best friend to chemotherapy on a regular basis;
• He would visit the sick and the shut in;
• When I was ill, he took care of me and even went to meetings in my stead;
• When he thought, my life might be at an end, he petitioned God to take him instead.

I am sure there are other stories of his magnificent obsession, of which I am unaware, but God knows.


Tomorrow