Posted on 03/21/2009 3:26:35 AM PDT by Glenn
She's still upstairs asleep.
She was tossing and turning because I had stolen the covers yet again. (She's the one who programs the thermostat so it is five degrees colder at night.) I got up. It's a daily ritual.
The daughter she gave me is sleeping in the next room. She must have been awake earlier. I hear her CD player cranking out music that soothes her back to sleep. In a few years, I am going to despise her music. For now, I rather enjoy the songs of the children.
She had her hair colored for the first time a week or so ago. She had developed gray hair at her temples. Something a man desires. She had worn the gray for a couple of years. I'd sometimes tease her about it, as I tease her about many things. It's my way and always done with a smile and paid back with her fist to my arm. I remember those. She hardly wears perfume and one day when she did, I told her she smelled wonderful and asked her which magazine she'd torn it out of. She laughed until she collapsed on the couch in what seemed like agony. On my dark days, those days when I couldn't find a dig with a shovel, I could see it in her eyes. Never sadness from her. Sometimes a sharp edge. But I knew she always prayed for the best thing to come next.
She once buried a Saint upside down in the backyard of a house we were trying to sell after I'd relocated for a job. It sold sooner rather than later and I envied her strength and faith in the process. When I was suffering, all to young, from a series of heart ailments and surgeries, she prayed. And she barked. Stop smoking! You don't need anymore alcohol! Please put your clothes in the hamper! Did she pray for those things as well? I never ask. She tells me when she is praying for me or about me.
I am a homebody. Except for the occasional play, movie, musical or sporting event, I don't leave the house. I am a contented man. I have what I need inside the walls of this house. We do go out to dinner a couple of times a month. We watch cooking shows on television at night. We can both agree on them. She likes "Heroes". I like "Criminal Minds". Sometimes I will suffer through her program or she mine, but usually we settle on the Food Network. We're comfortable in that.
Now that I am mostly deaf, she tries very hard to make herself heard without screaming. That was quite an adjustment for her and it took a while. She'd say something and I'd say, "Sorry?", and she'd scream what she had said and my ear would hurt and I would say, "Not so loud!" as loudly as I could. It's been a tough five years on her. She watched me as I learned to walk again after losing an ear. She drove me everywhere without complaint. She's so tough. So very, very, tough. After the bypass, she made sure I followed instructions. She knows I would forget if she didn't.
She asks me in the morning if her combo of clothing looks okay and never ever flinches when I tell her she's gotten the shoes wrong again. She trusts me and I trust her. She keeps my best interests at heart and I do my best to keep hers. There are so many things we simply ignore about one another, though. Things, if they were bunches, that would drive other couples to ruin. They aren't worthy of wrecking a mood.
Tonight, my daughter has decided where we will go for our anniversary dinner. It's her present to us. She's our present to us. Mom is tough. She gives no quarter on manners and behavior. At the end of the day, they hug each other tightly and swear undying love. I see the way she loves me in the way she loves our daughter. I hope the rest of the people in the world work just this way.
17 years. Amazing. All those memories. All that happiness. Time keeping time over all of it. It's forever, though. It might end, but it will be there still.
She trusts me and I trust her. She keeps my best interests at heart and I do my best to keep hers. There are so many things we simply ignore about one another, though. Things, if they were bunches, that would drive other couples to ruin. They aren't worthy of wrecking a mood.
Congratulations.
That’s beautiful. Congratulations.
Happy anniversary!
Happy anniversary.
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