Crazy Love

When I had sophomores as part of my teaching assignment, Macbeth was required reading. It's no secret that Cam and I love Shakespeare—a love that most people likewise share once they get to know the Bard's language and poetry.

I think my sister, Marcie, sparked my love for theater when I was about six. A few years my senior, Marcie was old enough to see the dazzling traveling production of Saturday's Warrior, and as soon as she got home, she told me every incredible detail as only a child can—bales of hay on the stage like this (oooh), the lighting like this (ahhh), the smart girl said this, he said that, and so on. I was mesmerized.

And then, when Marcie was in high school, she came home with this book that she said was soooo good. "It's called Macbeth," she told me, with excitement beaming from her blue eyes. The cover didn't give any clues I could decipher (just an agonized man in weird clothes), but I figured whoever this Macbeth was, she must have a juicy story. (Beth is obviously a girl's name, and also Marcie's middle name. You see my mistake.)

I grew up to teach sophomores the "cursed" play whose title many actors won't even let you say in a theater for fear someone in the cast will end up in the hospital (it's custom to call it "the Scottish play" to avoid near-death experiences, and yes, there's an actual history of deaths and many accidents over its centuries of performance).

I always divulged to sophomores my secret desire to put my stage training to use one day as Lady Macbeth.

"Wouldn't I be fabulous?" I'd say, making my eyes wide and wild.

Acknowledging my less-than-edgy look, I'd defend my self-casting choice: "Really—you wouldn't expect so much power-tripping and evil all of a sudden from this face, right? It'd be perfect!"

What could they do? Nod.

Sure, Mrs. Deaver. Just like someday you'll perform Shakespeare with Kenneth Branagh. When's this class over? Oh—woops. Forgot that I'm a teenager; I know end-of-class times better than I know my full name. Uh, this class is almost over, Deaver. Leave la-la land and get back to trying to entertain me into learning.

I still think I could do great things with Lady Macbeth. Her husband is making it up the ranks, he has an unsolicited conversation with three mystics who know the future, and BANG! An upstanding couple is on a path to self-created doom once Lady Macbeth glimpses the power that will certainly be theirs.

And then she sleepwalks, trying to rub away invisible spots on her hands. She dissolves into ma-a-a-ad-ness.

It's awesome. And every little drama queen's dream part. (And every grown male's nightmare, Cam would say to the insane wife part.)

Is there a point here? you're wondering. I thought that I was going to get an update on Cam's blood numbers so that we can all stop worrying he'll suddenly drop dead if he's force-fed a potassium-laden banana.

I'm getting there, reader. It's all connected. You just have to be patient and enjoy the ride.

And that's the point!

You have to be patient.

And enjoy the ride.

Something random made me think of Macbeth a couple of days ago when, once again, I just wanted to KNOW—

What exactly is Cam's blood potassium level? Is the nap he's taking normal, or is it a fatigue warning sign? (Of COURSE I Googled whether there truly are no warning signs for high potassium-induced death in kidney patients . . . and oh, great, the ever-easy-to-spot-as-a-warning-sign "FATIGUE". My worries are over . . .)

I just wanted to KNOW, Potassium is just fine, all signs indicate that if he continues to watch his diet, including avoiding the nefarious orange juice (it's the real potassium culprit according to Dr. Nephrologist), he won't drop dead between now and his next blood check.

Perfect! I'll stop worrying and wanting to know . . .

. . . until I start to anticipate the next doctor visit we have with the next specialist in about a week.

Huh.

I think there's a problem here.

And this is where Shakespeare's talent to tell a good story comes in. In Macbeth, a decent couple has a common human desire fulfilled: they learn the future.

And it destroys them.

Not only do Macbeth and Lady Macbeth recklessly force-create that future; it's more than that . . . it's as though they don't know how to even consider other options, or other ways that their certain future could come to pass without forcing its existence through murder. (Okay, so their situation is extreme, but it still serves my point.)

BECAUSE they know the future, everything unravels for the Macbeths. Like I said, it's as though they lose the power of choice because they're so driven by the exhilarating thought of their certain future.

My religion (LDS church) has lingo for that "power to choose"; we call it agency. To us, agency is a God-given gift. We use agency to stick one foot in front of the other in the direction of good, or we don't. In fact, we LDS view eternity kinda this way: humans are like kids sent off to college. God sends His children to earth, and humans show God that they'll make good choices on their own, with their agency. Humans just don't remember the "pre-college" years because then they wouldn't need faith. It would be too easy to choose; like the Macbeths knowing the future, it would inadvertently take away the beauty and power of agency.

And that's what life is, uncertainty and choices. To the epic poet Dante, what makes humanity beautiful is that God gave us both intellect—ability to reason—and will, the ability to act on reason; to choose.

Ultimately, in Dante's picture of hell (Inferno), humans actually become what they repeatedly embrace in life. For those in Dante's fictional hell, God can't claim them as His own because they willfully chose a love of something else in life. He has to let them continue to be what they embraced in mortality.

And choosing to not take sides, to fence-sit and not use the precious reason and will at all? Because it's scary, because we think we'll get it wrong or fail, because we don't feel like it, because of whatever—in Dante's concept of eternity, that has terrible consequences as well.

In fact, in one of the circles of Dante's hell, he has fortune/future-tellers. If I understand Dante, he implies that not only do the future-tellers attempt to play God, they defy the very concept upon which God set up human life: dependent upon individual reasoning to govern will through uncertainties.

I think one reason why Shakespeare's and Dante's works survive the centuries is not just because of the astonishing complex and astute ways they use language, but because they're able to create stories that resonate with our deepest human yearnings. And within those stories, they show us some wisdom about how to manage the frustrations of being human.

So Macbeth and The Divine Comedy say to me in this moment, "Krisha, you don't need all the answers right now." (And believe me, there are a lot of questions—beyond rare cancers and kidney failure—that I really want answers to in my life. Where the hell are our cute kids? would just be the start of a long list of things I'd like answers to. Now.)

But knowing how things work out, though we think it would give us peace of mind, would ultimately remove the beauty of what makes us human. What makes us divinely human is wrestling with the unknown and putting one foot in front of the other every day anyway in the direction of good—whatever good we've wrestled within ourselves to find and to find in others.

So what are Cam's numbers?

I would have told you from the start if I'd known. But I wrote all this during another day of not knowing.

Dr. Nephrologist just returned Cam's call. 

Cam tried to withhold information about the call and use it as leverage to get a backrub.

But he's not truly manipulative, so he stopped the playing around and told me.

And I thanked God. 

And then I held Cam really tight for a really, really long time. 

Actually, God had to get thanks while I held Cam tight (I don't think either of them minded). And then I held him (Cam) for a really long time after.

"Sometimes," I breathed into his ear, "I think that nothing bad can happen to you if I just keep holding onto you really tight." 

"You might squeeze the air out of me," I heard a muffled voice say that sounded vaguely like my husband's.

I squeezed harder. 

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And if you really want numbers—

They're slightly improved over five weeks ago, still higher than we hoped for, but not imminently dangerous.

If the potassium rises over the next few weeks, we'll make Cam get back on the sandy-syrupy, potassium-eliminating concoction that he stopped taking a week or so ago, on a "hunch" that he'd be fine.

And in the meantime, I'll keep watch like a crazy lady on the fruits and vegetables he eats, along with that salumi appetizer we had last night (phosphorous is also a kidney patient hazard), and I'll hope my squeezes let him know that my kooky protectiveness comes from crazy love. 

That's what I KNOW today.