I always try to scribble down the little pieces and fragments of our lives that make our Together special. I guess a part of me is afraid- lest I forget?
Because ever so once in a while you’d remind me of some crazy thing you did before that made me explode with peals of laughter, and I realized it was in a drawer in some crevice in my head that was closed.
Like that day when you walked home late at night from our church’s Christmas drama rehearsal and you, walking along the street outside our flat, yelled out my name. I, in shock, looked out the window from our home on the third storey and saw you declaring that you loved me- in the middle of the street in the middle of the night haha! (You are just full of the kind of craziness every girl enjoys.) Or like last week when you suddenly, in a fit of inspiration, started to play music by Tom Jones and started dancing, really DANCING and grooving to the beat to make me smile… Or like when I woke up in the middle of the night from a bad dream and found you lying so so close to me, with your arm blanketed over me and holding me close and giving me a kiss on my forehead when I told you someone was trying to harm me.
For some reason I didn’t write them down. So here it is, lest I forget.
Some days, I wish all the drawers were open so I could see and hear and taste and Savour the Goodness of all the memories you had created and stored up for me.
Like today, on Valentine’s Day when I came home to find this in an empty house, because you said you had to “work late” and was ” stuck at a train station” because “all the trains were packed”:
Just as I was recovering from my first shock, still trying to figure out if you had come home to drop the balloons off before scuttling off again, you crashed in through the door with flowers and a pack of our favourite Garrett’s popcorn and an affordably rented black-and-white Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck movie “Rome Holiday”…
And it didn’t matter that I felt a heavy sinking feeling of terrible guilt because they must have all cost a big bomb and I felt awful about it… but I could not help but laugh when I heard of how you went about this secret task at lunchtime and had to sacrifice lunch to do so, how you were the centre of attraction in the malls when everyone stopped to stare at the ferociously dramatic display of love in the shape of a huge bunch of balloons as you walked around, how nervous you were to fit the extravagant bundle into a cab, how the lady pumping your balloons wispfully asked who the balloons were for and melted when you said, “For my wife”, how you went to buy our favourite popcorn and asked around for a romantic movie so we could spend time together that night.
“I would have gotten them anyway, whether you wanted them or not!” You insisted, sensing my burden of guilt. “Because you’re my wife! I never got my wife flowers on Valentine’s before! And because I want to! I love you.”
And you laughed and smiled and grinned like a child. You are a child when you are with me, as I am with you.
But it didn’t matter. All that didn’t matter- the balloons, the popcorn, the movie, the flowers… They paled in comparison when a crisis happened that very night and I couldn’t sleep because I was fraught with worry but you held me and said, “Let’s pray,” and I did with your arms wrapped around me but I was still fretful and anxious and you, though absolutely exhausted from the day’s events at past midnight, said to me, “Hey, let’s get out of bed. Let’s sit by the window together and watch the rain if it’ll make you feel better. Or do you want to go for a walk? Or supper maybe?”
That, was love.
That was love when you said my problems were your problems; that was love when you said I would never be a burden; that was love when you said I didn’t ruin Valentine’s Day at all for you because you were with me and happy and you wouldn’t sleep till I did.
That was love.
Us, wrapped in blankets on a cold, cold midnight, sitting on the floor by the windows watching the rain fall on the golden lit streets, with the crazy balloons giddy with love rising to the ceiling, our hands interlaced with each other, praying for someone who needed it…
That was our Valentine’s Day.