I Married a Colored Man

Tony eats cherries fresh from the tree this morning.

When Tony and I were engaged he had to have his wisdom teeth removed. He has a serious bleeding problem, actually a clotting problem. He doesn't have enough of the sticky little cells called platelets in his blood. Platelets are the bits that glue together at the end of a broken capillary and keep it from spilling any more blood. So when the teeth were pulled he bled and bled and bled and bled. Then he swelled up like a pumpkin head and bled some more.

He also bruised, from his temples to the waistband of his pj's, which is as far as good girls saw of good boys in our distant youth. He could have been bruised to his ankles. When I say bruised, I mean he was (seriously) the color of a ripe eggplant. Finally he started to improve. You know how a bruise turns that sickly green color as it is clearing up? He turned as green as the grass in Yankee Stadium. He looked absolutely terrible.

At this point he met my parents for the first time. They thought he was a Martian, but I explained that no, he was just a Canadian and they all turned that funny color in the spring. Thankfully he had a "serious" disposition, which pleased the parents, who apparently feared I'd taken up with a circus clown. They preferred a serious (though green) Canadian to a practical joker with a spinning bow-tie and trick suspenders.

Once I explained that he was actually just bruised they felt better about his color. But several times in our marriage I have found myself married to a colored man. Usually a piebald, spotted black and blue one. He hit his head at one point when his platelet count was low and his ability to clot almost non-existant. You could see the bruise spreading under the skin. During those frightening years a touch could bruise him. Blood tests required that the arm be packed in ice and elevated afterwards. Blue arms, swollen black hands.

Thankfully now there's medication to take care of his problem. A bit of inhaled steroid goes a long way toward keeping his ability to clot intact. His platelet count will never be more than half of what yours likely is, but it is enough to keep him reasonably intact.

He lost a lot of blood during this surgery. He's a little white under his tan. Except that if you look at the poor leg you think of that kid's song about singing a rainbow...

"Red and yellow and pink and green,
purple and orange and blue.
You can sing a rainbow,
Sing a rainbow,
Sing a rainbow too."

I have a rainbow husband. I married a colored man.