Man of the Year: Ryan Bell

It seems almost a weird time to be announcing a man of the year award.  It is near the end of 2008, but don't those things usually happen at the beginning of the next year?  Either way it doesn't matter.  Because time and again this man has stood up and been a great human being over the past 12 plus months.  

When I got sick last year around Halloween, we were both pretty engrossed in our own lives and busy as heck.  But he put things on hold to take care of me.  He brought me drinks, made me my meals over and over again, even when all I wanted was eggs or grilled cheese.  He cleaned out my cups full of tissues and mucus when I was coughing so much it didn't make sense to get out of bed to spit anything out.

Everyday he came to the hospital while I was there to share my dinner with me.  While the hospital food wasn't the stereotypical horribleness it could have been, I'm sure he could have eaten better somewhere else.  He brought me anything I requested, and when it was time to go home he continued to do all the things that made me feel comfortable and better.

Flash forward a year later and I am still struggling with my health and with my life.  He is extremely busy trying to finish his masters degree that almost got put at a stand still last October, but he never fails to amaze me.  He does the laundry because it hurts too much for me to do the repetitive motions of bending over to deposit clothes in the machine and take them out again.  He does the dishes most of the time unless I've mustered up some strength for a small stretch.  And even though cleaning the litter box is MY job, he does that when it hasn't been done in awhile either.  

He has been to countless appointments with me, either just as a driver or as a second person in the room to listen and ask questions, and he continues to be involved in my care both physically and mentally.  He warms up my heating pads to keep my sore muscles and joints comfy, and he still cooks the meals I want, even when they are the same thing over and over again.

Twice this month I have given him the Man of the Day award, for doing two very different things.  The first was when he effortlessly broke a frozen slab of bacon in half over the kitchen counter, in my amazement who else was I going to award the man of the day award to.  And at 2am this morning when I rolled over to ask him if he was awake after I was tossing and turning and had even been up to go to the bathroom, he replied yes.  My stomach was upset from my meds, and I wanted a glass of ginger ale.  Bleary eyed he got up and got it for me, when I probably could have easily gotten it myself.  I awarded the man of the day award again, but he thought it was awful early in the day to be giving out awards.  

That's when I decided really that this post needed to be done.  People needed to what he has done for me through all that I've been going through.  So world (or my handful of readers)  Ryan Bell is my man of the year.

Stay tuned for runners up, they might even include a few females.