Blue Star Chronicles

I’m hoping that I can think of at least 13 valentine-ish things about my relationship with my Beloved Curmudgeon. After 16 years, you would think I could. It’s not that we don’t have good relationship, it’s just that Valentine’s Day is not his thing. He says Valentine’s Day was just invented by the card companies as an excuse to get suckers to spend more money. I figure that makes them good capitalists and good for them if they can separate us from our money. That’s what makes the world go round.

He softens all that by saying he doesn’t need a card company to tell him when to give me something. He says he loves me every day. Yeah. Right.

I’m suspect of his reasons for ignoring Valentine’s Day though. This is the same man who has been known to suddenly rush out of the house at 6:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve to start shopping for my Christmas gift. He ‘forgot’ Christmas was coming. HOW does one ‘forget’ Christmas is coming??? That’s why he’s my Beloved Curmudgeon. He does a lot right - but holidays and that sort of gift giving are not among his strengths.

1. People who know my Beloved Curmudgeon are always saying things to me like, ‘I bet he keeps you laughing all the time’. I can’t say ALL the time, but a lot. He’s a ‘character’. My daughter called while I was writing this and I told her I what I was doing and she immediately said, ‘he’s funny’. SEE!!!
2. I believe that most people treat their spouse the way that they want to be treated themselves. In the same way people tend to show love in the way they feel loved. When I started understanding that, it helped.
3. He’s been known to get up early and take my car out to make sure it was full of gas and make coffee and bring me a cup while I was putting on make-up.
4. When we first started dating, he flew down to Georgia to pick me up for a date. I met him at the airport and he flew right back to Michigan with me.
5. He rescued me and my children when we needed rescuing. Without going into the details, I don’t think someone with a less forceful personality could have done what he did.
6. He took me to a bullfight in Mexico because he wanted to share his appreciation for the contest with me.
7. He can laugh at himself and doesn’t mind if we laugh at/with him. He had a fit trying to put a Christmas tree together. He kept saying it musta been made in Japan, that would explain why it didn’t fit together. I looked on the box and said, no it was made in the U.S.A. He then went on a rant about it being made in the U.S.A., no wonder it didn’t fit together. I should have bought one made in Japan, he said. Eventually he threw it all into a pile and declared we were to all leave it sitting there because he was going to personally take it and do something unmentionable with it to the guy who sold me the defective tree. As soon as he stormed out of the room my 10-year-old son told me he could put the tree together. I told him to go ahead and do it. He did, in about 3 minutes. Beloved Curmudgeon had been putting it together upside down. We had it decorated by the time he came back into the room. We still laugh about the upside down Christmas tree.
8. He has loved my children as if they were his own. He’s raised them since they were very little. I could write pages and pages of things he has done for them.
9. His daughter got mugged in Chicago early in our relationship. She called him crying. As soon as he hung up the phone he got in his car and drove the 18 hour drive to Chicago to take care of her and to get her moved into a safer area and then drove back home.
10. We are both opinionated and hard headed so we’ve gotten into some pretty hefty fights. No matter how mad we are at each other, if I need him he will drop his anger at me and help me.
11. He wants to hear about my day every day and he actually listens. He’s a good businessman/manager and has helped me think through and handle situations at work so many times I can’t count them. I’ve learned a lot from him about business and management. To this day if something comes up that I’m not sure about I call him and he’ll help me think it through.
12. In spite of his tough guy persona, he’s got a wonderful heart. I’ve seen him bring in injured animals to nurse to health. He can’t stand to see any being that he perceives as ‘innocent’ suffering. If he doesn’t perceive you as ‘innocent’ that’s another story. He has spoiled our animals to the point they are all neurotic messes. Even my daughters cat that he claims to hate and calls ‘that vile cat’. He doesn’t know that we know he secretly takes care of her in spite of his claims. I asked him one time why he treated the animals that way when he doesn’t treat the human part of the family that way. He said, ‘they’re animals’. To him that explained it.
13. As long as I’ve known him he has been strong and healthy. He could do anything, in my mind. About 2 years ago he got sick and almost died at least 3 times over the period of a month that he was in ICU. He was not lucid while he was there and I was having to make all the decisions about his treatment. I kept finding myself thinking I needed to ask him what to do and it was a shock to me that I couldn’t ask him. Looking back I realize that I was in denial during most of that time. I remember conversations with the numerous doctors that were treating him and I now realize that I just wasn’t letting myself think about the fact they were preparing me for the fact they though his chances of pulling through were not that good. They kept giving me percentages for his chances. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that my strong husband could be that sick. One night I came home after the last visitation of the day and made myself busy with all the stuff I could find to make myself busy. When I couldn’t find anything else to make myself busy I sat down on the couch in my family room and looked at the wall. It was about 2:30 a.m. A panic took hold of me and for the first time I understood that he might die. All the things I had grown to take for granted were all of the sudden threatened. His support, his humor, his strength, his shoulder. I realized I couldn’t imagine my life without him. He finally quit getting sicker and I started hearing more encouraging news although he had a long way to go. He eventually was able to come home and over a period of months began to return to his usual self. His healing process is another story altogether though and that is for another day and another post. The point here is that in spite of everything and because of everything he is my valentine.