Word of the Week 11/07/14 – Love

Today is my fifth wedding anniversary and so my word for this week has to be love.

My husband’s love has helped me keep going through all the struggles of the last five years. From losing my dad a few months after we got married, to finding out our first child had a serious heart defect and the journey through the fear of losing her, all the hospital visits and surgeries and many, many scary moments. He has been my rock, my strength and my support. He has loved me through the ups and downs, helped pull me out of the pit of depression, offered quiet strength and support during the births of our two beautiful daughters and shared many, many joyful moments. I am a better person for having him in my life.

He sees me at my worst – those awful ugly moments of pain and despair, anger and hate – and will stop to hold me and tell me how much he loves me. He works incredibly hard to support us all, working long hours to allow me to choose to be a SAHM and will get up with the girls early in the morning even if he has been working late to allow me to get some much-needed extra sleep when the overwhelming tiredness of too many broken nights is becoming too much.

He tells me I’m beautiful first thing in the morning when I have bed hair and bags beneath my eyes. He always notices the rare occasions when I actually manage to put make-up on. He holds my hand below the table when we get to eat out, gives me little hugs for no reason at all and not a day goes by that he doesn’t tell me that he loves me.

He is a wonderful daddy to our little girls. No-one else can make them laugh the way he can. I watch their faces light up when he comes home from work, watch the way he spins them around and makes them giggle, those precious bedtime moments when I walk in and find him asleep in the rocking chair with one of the girls sleeping in his arms. He has sat for hours next to a hospital cot, prayed with me countless times in hospital chapels, cried with me in the dark moments but has also stayed strong when I have needed him to be strong.

He leaves the toilet seat up, starts DIY projects and then takes months to finish them, always runs late and drives me crazy at times but then will surprise me out of the blue by a spontaneous romantic gesture – logging in remotely to our sound system to play me a love song when he is away or giving me flowers for no particular reason. I take him for granted a thousand times, forget the hundred things he does right in the moment of the one little thing he just did wrong but I try and remember to also tell him each day that I love him. We argue and fight but we never allow a battle to continue overnight. At some point, reason takes over from the heat of the moment and we start to talk and find a way through. We know that we are stronger together.

Thank you hubby for the last five years, for being the glue that holds my pieces together and for always believing in me even when I doubt myself. I love you millions and billions – you are the best!

Joining in once again with the Reading Residence on Word of the Week.