Complacency can kill us
Quit whining and vote
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I lay in the guest bedroom of our simple rectangular home, listening to Paul wheeze and cough 3 rooms away, wondering if tonight would be the night I lost him.
Paul is 81 and has COPD. He’s at high risk for everything. He’s also as vaccinated as you can get. He does his physical therapy for a shoulder replacement religiously. He gets on the elliptical a half hour every day. He does his best.
During the dawn hours of Labor Day he had turned to me in bed. He was stuffed up and sleepless. He’d been coughing up phlegm all night.
“I can’t go with you today.”
I’d have to march in the Quad Cities Labor Day parade without him riding in the truck the way he has ever since we jumped on the Phil Wiese for Iowa campaign.
“Bronchitis again?”
“Yeah,” he said through a fog.
I got up, got dressed and left him there to go campaign. I left him in our home alone, except for two dogs, knowing …