Hottie, Hubbie, Hero

I have a hard time writing about him.  The whole exercise feels showey-provey, like sending flowers to your spouse's workplace just to validate what?  That you can send flowers?  To your spouse?  At work?  Because bringing them home to her and placing them in a vase in your own kitchen isn't good enough? I have trouble writing about my husband, because words fall short of my appreciation.  I can write elegies about the man he was, he is, and will be, but I have been loving this man for a third of my life.  We have shared tents and bathrooms the size of Tic Tac containers.  We have shared sicknesses and hopes and resumes and friends.  We share an address and a last name and a child.  A child that is made, particle for particle, of our very fibers.

I really cannot write about him.  I don't think he likes it.  He's described by co-workers as "understated." Brilliant without you're even knowing it.

But I can't not write about how much I love this man.  He works three jobs; when you see him, he has either not slept for 36 hours, or will not sleep for the next 36.  And then he will come home and do dishes and kiss boo-boos and disassemble faulty shower heads.  And he never complains.

I've heard women say that they sometimes don't know why their husbands love them, why they put up with them.  A couple of months ago, Lovey Loverpants gave a sermon on the meaning of love and how we can't fully know love until we know grace.  That is, we can't expect to give love if we haven't learned to appreciate the love of which we are so undeserving.

I think of that now, at 2:53 a.m. while false labor pangs keep me awake, after a weekend of behaving like some kind of feral cat in heat. He never complains. He loves me beyond all deserving.  I can't write about him.  All I can do is love him. My husband, my hero.