His Birthday

Yesterday, I was planning to wax poetic about this man I married. The day changed and all the words I had conjured up were gone. Sometimes the every day living does that--takes away the beauty and the fun and the poetry of being alive. Then you just have the story, the prose of life.

You know we had plans laid out, we'd had our family business meeting and had reached consensus on money and house and car and all the business end of keeping a family. Then I caused an accident, oh not deliberately, and the intersection is terrible, but I made the first decision.

And he as said nothing disparaging about or toward me. Yes, we mourned the death of plans, grieved the loss of a good car that saw us through many thousands of miles, and swallowed the rather bitter pill of car payments and an eventual hike in insurance premiums. We reordered those plans, and added more years to the gratification of our hopes. But never once did he attack with word, deed, or look. Never once did he speak disappointment or unkindness toward me.

Instead he sat with our children in an emergency room. He called my mother. He allowed me to squeeze his hand while the doctor numbed my shoulder and stitched the holes left by glass. He changed bandages and he changed diapers. He found a new-for-us car and didn't flinch when the payments were laid out, 5 years of them. He prayed and he loved.

When we were in college-dating, a friend commented, probably to my complaints, [He] has the romantic tendencies of a rock. I remember laughing. It is true left to his own devises, the dear man doesn't have the greatest of romantic tendencies, but he is a rock--the kind you stand on, the kind foundations are made of, the kind that weathers a storm, the kind that's too big to throw at people. For all the roses and dinners of romance, give me a rock any day of the week.

I'm so thankful that I get to spend this birthday with him.

Happy Birthday, My Love