If I spring a leak, she mends me...

Saturday night my pregnant wife got sick. Really sick...

She woke me up from a sound sleep not more than thirty minutes after I'd gone to bed. Now, I'd retired early Saturday night because she was playing timpani in a church service on Sunday afternoon and I wanted to go with her. You see, music is a very important part of my wife’s life and I like to share it with her even if it’s just carrying pieces of equipment and sitting in the audience and watching her play. (I love watching the look of happiness on her face when she’s performing.)

So, trying to be the good husband, I go off to sleep on the sofa. That way, I can get some sleep and my wife gets the bed which is closer to the bathroom and doesn’t have to crawl over the top of me to get there. The best laid plans...

Sunday morning we wake up and neither one of us have gotten the rest we needed. She goes off to rehearsal and I stay home. The day is a miserable one while she’s gone and I am having one of those days. You know, the Murphy Day, where everything that can go wrong is going wrong.

So, by the time my wife comes home from rehearsal I’m sitting in the den watching television in a state of sweet-sulking-sullen-misery. I’m speaking in monosyllabic tones, rejecting every offer of food and libation and basking in the juices of my darkest depression. Hey, I’m fifty-two years old, sometimes I’m crusty.

Still, trying to be a decent husband I get showered, shaved and dressed for the church service. Departure time arrives and I’m ready to go. Yes, I was still grousing but I was ready to go and would have calmed down on the journey to Piqua. It’s a lovely drive and it always makes me feel good.

As we’re headed to the car we fall into the dance. You know the one.

“Well if you’re just going to...

"Then why don’t you just stay home and...”

So I stomped back into the house and she stomped off to the car and separated for the day we were.

Ten minutes after she’s departed I’m thinking, “Man that’s not how I planned on spending today.” (I hate when that happens.)

So, I change clothes and sit down to watch my beloved Cleveland Browns play the Kansas City Chiefs in a rarely televised game here in the heart of Cincinnati Bengal territory. As the contest progresses into the fourth quarter the Browns are losing and their starting quarterback gets hurt and leaves the game. Great...

Bound and determined that the day is not going to be a total loss, I decide to give up on the game and get in my daily thirty minute walk. Off into the frozen tundra I go. Damn was it cold and I froze my butt off. Now, are you ready for the fun part? When I get home, I fix myself a nice cup of warm coffee and head back upstairs to watch the next football game.

You know what happened. Yes, the Browns came back to win the most thrilling game of the season, in overtime, and I missed it.

Oh it gets better...

I’d also missed my wife’s phone call. The one where she called to tell me she’d fallen and hurt herself.

Yeah, I certainly felt like the very best husband in the whole wide world.

Man, sometimes you step on a pile of crap and the next thing you know you are neck deep in biggest shit sinkhole you’ve ever fallen into. It happens.

Well, she got home and terrified that something might have happened to the baby, guilt on both our parts and all kinds of other emotional ingredients combined in a stew of crusty fussiness and once again, we went to sleep alone together. The perfect finish to the perfect day.

I awoke this morning with my wife giving me a kiss before she headed out to work. “Do you need anything before I go, honey?”

“No, I’m okay. What time is your appointment with the doctor?”

“Two forty-five. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

“I love you, angel.”

“I love you too.”

Today’s lesson?

Sometimes love is tough. Sometimes it does not feel much like love at all. Now, I can’t tell you many things about love because I really didn’t know much about it until late in my life. But I can tell you the most important thing my wife has taught me about love.

Love is a choice.

I made the choice to marry this woman and she chose to have me as her husband. And each and every day we choose to continue our love no matter what each moment brings to our table. We choose to accept the bad as well as the good. And you know what? It turns out we’ve chosen pretty well.

It’s easy to love when there are no trials and tribulations. But there are always trials and tribulations. And when you get through them and you hold each other tight, there is no sweeter love. So many people give up so easy these days. At the first cross word, they leave a relationship. It breaks my heart...

Folks, I don’t care how bad a day it is, I’d rather spend it with my wife than live it without her. That’s my choice, and gratefully, it’s hers too.

Trust me, if you choose to live through the worst of your husband, your wife or even your children with love, it will only make living through the best of their days that much sweeter. Celebrate the bad days as much as you would the good days. They are both important ingredients in the reality of agape love. But who am I to speak of these things?

It’s your choice...