Everything's Gonna Be Alright

 Two weeks ago, my wife had a stroke. 

It was scary, of course. My beautiful, capable wife suddenly couldn’t put weight on her right foot or hold a cup in her right hand, her wit and verve suddenly lost in a brain fog. It wasn’t like the hospital soaps, where people dramatically grab the sides of their heads and then scream and collapse. She woke up in pain, and couldn’t stand up. 

The good news is that it was fairly minor as strokes go. They expect her to make a full (or close to full) recovery.

So every day for the past two weeks, from 11ish to 7ish, I’ve been at her bedside in the hospital, through her procession of roommates over the first week (including the lady who would just randomly shout broken spanish at her at all hours). I’ve been encouraging her in her rehab exercises. The biggest motivator in her getting strong enough to get out is her quest to escape from the terrible food. She is eagerly doing her hand exercises so she can throw her plate at the person who brings her the same terrible chicken leg four meals in a row. I’ve been trying to talk her out of this, but frankly I’m coming around to her point of view. 

I’ve been a production manager and a stage manager for live events for over two decades now. A big part of that is the ability to remain calm and collected while people are freaking out all around you, to literally be the eye of the hurricane. I used to tell my students that my stage manager’s philosophy was cribbed from the legendary Flyers coach, Fred Shero. He would write inspirational sayings on the locker room blackboard, such as “Be like the duck. Calm on the surface but paddling like hell underneath.”

I’ve been doing a lot of paddling. 

Before my dad passed away a couple years ago, he had been sick for a decade with lymphoma, gout, diabetes, and a number of ailments that would flare up and recede. My mom spent a lot of time in hospital rooms and trying to get information out of doctors. (Another way that movies lie to you: there’s no scene where the doctor sits you down and tells you what’s wrong with your loved one. You have to tackle one in the hallway and literally sit on them till they tell you something.) 

Since this started, she has been telling me to make sure I take care of myself. It’s easy enough to just eat crap because you’re too tired or distracted to cook. (In a quirky coincidence, the deli across the street from the hospital that sells ok coffee and decent pizza is called Strokos. Perhaps Canceros was too on the nose?) My mom said she did a lot of retail therapy, and I will admit to buying a spiffy new Hawaiian shirt or two on eBay. So I’ve been doing that. I’ve been watching a lot of Mets baseball (which for once had been a relatively stress-free experience), lots of comedy shows and action movies (Big thumbs up to Prey, Only Murders in the Building, and What We Do In The Shadows!),

But mainly, I’ve been centering myself with a trip to Wakanda. 

By coincidence, my wife had her stroke the week after the San Diego Comic Con, which was where they debuted the trailer for the Black Panther sequel, Wakanda Forever. 

The trailer is a lot. It features the funeral of King T’Challa, which is also a memorial to the late actor Chadwick Boseman. There are lots of tears from his family, Wakanda is under attack from Prince Namor, the Submariner, and Angela Bassett has the only line of spoken dialogue, where she screams about how she has lost her entire family. 

That would be plenty to tug at the heartstrings, but then we add the music. 

It starts off with No Woman, No Cry, as sung by the Nigerian singer Tems, which sets the mood. There’s a lot of sad women crying against sunsets. 

Good friends we have and good friends we've lost

Along the way

In this great future, you can't forget your past

So dry your tears, I say

As the trailer goes on, this song starts to blend into the song Alright by Kendrick Lamar, and the plaintive song grows more driving and propulsive until the conclusion of the trailer where the new Black Panther unsheathes his or her claws. 

Everything's gonna be alright

Everything's gonna be alright

Do you hear me, do you feel me? We gon' be alright 

Uh, and when I wake up

I got home the first night after the hospital, and I was feeling pretty raw. I hadn’t eaten all day. I still didn’t know what the  diagnosis was. Our dog, Dany, sat by the door waiting for Kim to come home. After aimlessly surfing through YouTube, I put on the trailer. I’d already seen it on the weekend, but I played it again.

And it just destroyed me and then built me up. The sadness of the first half, the percussive beat of the Kandrick riff, it just connected with what I had been keeping inside. 

Do you hear me, do you feel me? We gon' be alright 

How much I’d been white knuckling it the first day, trying to keep her calm, trying to get any information out of the doctors.

Do you hear me, do you feel me? We gon' be alright 

So every day that first week, I’d come home, walk Dany, heat up some chili from the big pot I made so I wouldn’t just eat Big Macs all week, and watch the Wakanda Forever trailer once or twice or four times. 

We gon' be alright 

After a week, Kim got moved to rehab. It was a quieter floor so she could get more rest. Her walking has improved daily, her hand has gotten stronger, her wit and her beautiful smile returned. Dany is even scheduled to come and visit her. She has a release day scheduled. The road ahead looks easier than it did ten days ago. 

I don’t know exactly why I latched onto the Wakanda Forever trailer. I can’t tell you why certain pieces of

art or pop culture hit so hard if you catch them at the right time. All I can tell you is that Wakanda has a

place in my heart thanks to this, and it helped me through a difficult time, and I thank it for that.

Victor Catano lives in New York City with his wonderful wife, Kim, and his adorable pughuaua, Danerys. When not writing, he works in live theater as a stage manager, production manager, and chaos coordinator. His hobbies include coffee, Broadway musicals, and complaining about the NY Mets and Philadelphia Eagles. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @vgcatano and find his books on Amazon