Love and Marriage

On our wedding day - Saturday, June 21st, 2003

Yesterday was our eighth wedding anniversary so I figured this was a good time to write a bit about the husband, because I realized I’ve written many things about the illness but very few things about him.

We met in 1999. We were out in a big group of people and the first thing we did was have a massive argument; we were both in other relationships at the time, though we probably should have known then they didn’t stand a chance. We started dating in September after many months grudging détente from our first monumental and very public fight. Two months later we decided to get married, it ended up taking us three and a half years, through no fault of ours. Though we promptly moved in together so as not to waste any time.

In 1999 soon after we started dating

The husband is a charismatic guy, he’s funny and serious at the same time. He knows a lot about a lot, I don’t know how he does it. He often comes up with completely random facts that totally pick up flagging dinner conversations, he’s the king of small talk, though apparently he hates it. He’s very good at manual labor, yet has mainly had white-collar jobs. I’m completely confident we will never go hungry, in the event of an apocalyptic scenario he’ll always find something to do.

 He’s good with the children, though we have different parenting styles. He takes time to be with them, and in the unlikely event that I can’t take care of them he does a stellar job.

But all these things don’t really tell you what he’s like, do they?

Let’s see if I can do a better job with some anecdotes:

One day he was driving home with my brother and they find a horse in the middle of the road. My brother freaked out, the husband got out of the car, approached the horse, calmed him down and took him back to the stables nearby. My brother came home in awe, and said he was like the horse-whisperer.

2004 - first wedding anniversary

On my twenty-sixth birthday, the husband put twenty six post-it notes with Happy Birthday and a number written on them all over the house, in the order that I would find them in. Happy Birthday 1 was in front of the toilet, HB 2 on my toothbrush, HB3 on my coffee cup… and so on. I spent the entire day running into post-it notes as I went about my regular activities. It was the best birthday ever, bar none. I was amazed that he knew my daily routine so well, including what I did when he wasn’t around and I spent a delightful day on a treasure hunt for post its.

2005 - second wedding anniversary

He went all the way to Houston to ask for my hand in marriage. And he had to ask my Dad, my Mom and my Brother. Separately. He was really, really serious about marrying me.

2006 - third anniversary

On another birthday he went through a whole song and dance about not being able to be there cause he had to be away for work, and as I was bitterly complaining about it to a friend at a bar I see a huge bouquet of red roses walking towards me on the husband’s legs.

2007 - fourth anniversary

On our wedding day, he dropped everything and came to my house to talk me down from an attack of wedding hysteria.

2008 - fifth anniversary

 When our first baby, the boy, was born he was so nervous that he pulled his back out and spent the first two days lying in the hospital bed next to me getting the same pain killers as I was getting after the c-section, certainly not helpful, but it shows he’s empathic.

2009 - sixth anniversary

When our second baby, the girl, was born he supported me throughout the entire labor and birth, physically and emotionally despite the fact the leukemia was probably already quite advanced. We didn’t know, of course, but he did it.

2010 - seventh anniversary

And yesterday morning I woke up to this:

Breakfast surprise

There are many more things I could tell you, these are the first ones that popped into my mind unbidden today. Obviously, we’ve had hard times and bad times along with the good times, but these times show you what kind of guy he is most of the time, and how lucky I am to have him.

2011 - eighth anniversary - CHEERS!