Tonight I’m feeling grateful for my husband, Sean. He’s an awesome teammate in all these life shenanigans.
To be honest, I feel grateful for him basically all the time. I’ve told you before that I’m morbid and I frequently imagine what life would be like if one of my children died – or both – or my husband – or sometimes all three of them. This practice (?) makes it easy to appreciate my family members. (Sean tells me this is a very Stoic outlook.)
I can totally take an annoying habit, like the kids leaving their used socks on the couch (why do they do this??), and turn it into something precious in my mind by imagining the owners of the socks… gone.
I imagine the loss of my husband even more clearly on the weeks when he’s on the afternoon shift (3:30 p.m.-2 a.m.). The kids and I don’t see much of him during those weeks, especially when there’s overtime. (I gotta say, my spoons run low much more quickly at those times. And some jars simply don’t get opened.)
I can’t even get into all the things that would be painful and dull and difficult and just completely tragic if Sean were gone forever. But just as a sampling, today I’ve been feeling particularly grateful for:
- his housework abilities,
- his gift for bringing the kids around to laughter when they’re grumpy,
- his physical strength,
- his tendency to remember things I forget,
- and his snuggling skills. Honestly, when his army buddies nicknamed him Dr. Snuggles, they had no idea how right they were.
So thanks for being you, Sean. I love you. Don’t be going anywhere.
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