WHAT TRUE LOVE LOOKS LIKE

I'd been sick all day. In fact, I'd been sick all week, and all month. Withdrawing cold turkey from fifteen years of valium use was knocking the breath right out of me. I'd never been this sick in my life. When I wasn't in bed I was in the bathroom. I went through three months of this. One morning at 3AM I headed to the bathroom. There, on hands and knees, my husband scrubbed the floor. He said it was the only time he could clean it without disturbing me. Those three months Jay did everything for me. Everything. Even if he had to get up at 3AM to do it.

He continues to love me in that deep and abiding way five years later. Last spring I made the mistake of eating too much fresh pineapple at a wedding in another town. On our way home the next morning my husband and I stopped at a thrift store where I lost all bowel control. I didn't make it to the bathroom in time so I was a mess. My husband insisted on coming into the restroom with me (it was a single stall room) so he could help me get out of my clothes, clean me up, and run to the car to get me a clean outfit. He also rinsed my soiled clothes in the sink. He did all this quickly, efficiently, and without complaint. His biggest concern was that I might be getting sick again, but I assured him it was just the pineapple I ate the night before. 

True love is not always best illustrated by flowers and candlelight, chocolates and poetry.  True love shows up especially brilliantly in illness and adversity.   I'm so blessed to have a husband who does not think it a burden to take care of me. In fact, he considers it a privilege. Perhaps it's because he's almost lost me twice that he holds to me so dearly. Whatever the reason, this anniversary I'm grateful for 23 years with such a man in my life.

Jay & I in August, 2013