Trust
In the past almost nine years of marriage, Satomi and I have argued about a hundred thousand times. A few years ago, in the midst of one of these arguments, I paused the hostilities to make a fundamental observation about Satomi’s personality. To illustrate my point, I described a vivid dream that I had a few days before.
Satomi and I are crossing a busy street. She’s ahead of me as we reach the middle of the street. I see a car run the red light and speed toward her.
I reach for her and scream, “Satomi watch out!”
Instead of leaping out-of-the-way, she stops walking, turns around and says, “Why?”
BAM!
Satomi thinks I was full of crap back then and still thinks so now. I, on the other hand, think it’s symbolism quite accurately describes our personalities and most importantly, her deep-rooted trust issues.
The busy street represents our life together. The car running the red light is an unforseen emergency. My scream is literally my warning to her. Her question is her lack of trust.
Let me put it a different way:
Even in times of great peril, Satomi would rather take the time to understand for herself rather than trust that I have her interests at heart.
At the time, I’m sure that my dream did more to piss her off than illustrate my point. But now this abstraction is a reality.
Satomi and I argue almost daily about her using the bedside commode instead of the catheter bag. You may remember that she’s had several seizures there and she is typically too weak to get back into bed.
She keeps pushing me to explain why I’m against moving her in all but the most dire of circumstances. For some reason the obvious response of “you have a catheter” is not enough to squash the idea of using the bedside commode for pee duty.
Recently she just waits for me to leave the room and pesters whoever is sitting there to help move her.
Why does she always need to know? Can’t she just trust that I’m trying to keep her from having a seizure? That I’m trying to keep her alive?
I know that she has functional brain and memory disabilities and this argument is minor and stupid but after all this time together, it is just disappointing to see that these trust issues still apply to me.
“Satomi watch out!”
Satomi's Cancer Blog 
And yet here you are almost nine years later at her side….doing your damnest to keep it together. Says something about your love for her!
Perhaps she wants to try to pee “normally”? I couldn’t even begin to imagine how she feels, but perhaps a person facing their own mortality would like to hold onto some semblance of a normal life… even if it means peeing w/o a catherter?
Sometimes, life cannot be controlled… danger cannot be averted… things must take their course.
You can do all you can as a husband and father to protect your family, but you can never take away all sources of harm. It is not a lack of trust… perhaps Satomi just didn’t hear you?