As a whole, I am really not a fan of Valentine’s Day. Too much pressure to be in love or have a lover or buy the right gift or make sure you do enough to be considered a good Valentine, but not so much that you over do the whole thing and it looks insincere. To me, it’s all crap. You want to show someone you love them? Tell them. Daily. Again and again.
I am not one to post super sappy things here. Oh sure, I do now and then. And you probably keep a barf bucket nearby when that happens. So, grab your bucket if you got it because I want to tell you about real love. (Not the Hallmark version.)
Real love is holding your wife’s hand and wiping away her tears when you lose your first child.
Real love is not getting your feelings hurt when your wife screams at you in labor that you are a rotten bastard who will never have sex with her again. (And laughing right at her.)
Real love is standing beside the one you love when she goes through the worst time of her life and pours all of her hatred for herself out onto you. When she tells you she hired a lawyer and she’s leaving. It is standing beside her because you believe in what you have and aren’t willing to let it go without a fight.
Real love is cleaning up the kids’ puke in the middle of the night so that she doesn’t have to.
Real love is loving someone when they are struggling to love themself.
Real love says, “You are beautiful!” even though age, babies and life has made their mark on her body and put lines on her face.
Real love is knowing that no matter what hardship we are going through, we have each other and the family we have created. It is knowing that even though the life we have right now may not be perfect and it may be pretty hard, it is a blessing we would never trade. It is ours and it is a miracle.
Real love is what I am blessed to have with my husband.
(Everyone else, look away for a second.)
I love you, babe.
(Okay. You can look back.)
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