To My Husband

Dear Hubs, 

    I was thinking about what I wanted to write to you for Father's Day, and I couldn't come up with anything that seemed good enough. I wanted to write a poem, but am afraid to lose some sincerity in rhyme. I thought of writing a straight you-themed blog, but that too seemed a daunting task. 

     How am I supposed to put my entire heart into words? I've tried off and on through the years, and have never yet come up with anything that sums it all up. For someone who enjoys talking and writing, and who loves you so dearly, I struggle mightily when it comes to this topic... the topic of you, and of my love and feelings towards you. Even now I am embarrassed, recognizing that already I am stumbling over this letter so badly. Please excuse that. <3 

     There are the big things, of course. The separate moments that we fell in love with one another, and the time we spent cultivating it... our wedding day, and the first years of our marriage. The miscarriages that dashed our hopes and broke our hearts time and time again. The eventual diagnosis that we had developed an infertility issue, which seemed like a crushing blow. 

   Then there was the pregnancy test that turned pink, and the baby that stayed and eventually turned our whole world pink. Giraffe entered our lives in a way we had never been told to expect. The day I watched you become a father you almost became a widower, and childless. It was the hardest thing we have ever gone through. I will never forget the hours we spent sitting together in broken silence in the N.I.C.U., or the mixed look of tragedy and love on your face every time you watched over or held our big little girl. 

(Gack! There goes my make up! Perhaps I should not have written this before church!)

   I saw something else in that N.I.C.U. ward too, though I was too upset and distracted to realize it at the time. I saw you becoming a father, and really, it seemed more that you already WERE a father. I always knew you were the kind of guy who was meant to be dad, and when the world exploded and Giraffe was here, the transformation was instant. You changed all of her diapers so gently and tenderly with love. Every single one, without complaint. You learned to dress her without further injuring her damaged and paralyzed body. 

   You championed me for seventeen hours a day, and even every two hours those short, painful nights making sure I had clean pumping supplies, and running scant drops of colostrum from the Ronald McDonald House up the long, long corridors back to the N.I.C.U. You were my rock when your world was falling apart as rapidly as mine. I can't keep going... there are too many memories... but I need you to know that you are the single strongest man I have ever met. The things we've gone through have been rough, and there have been times where we lived in more pain than promise. Through it all, you have have been the loving, tender, humble, yet strong leader that this family needs. You guide us through the good and the bad, and make sure that all of your girls feel safe and loved at the end of the day. 
   

When Koala joined us nearly two years ago, I got to see you shine all over again. You were so doting and attentive. You exhausted yourself seeing to it that I stayed pregnant and that she got here safely. Your home is completely surrounded in feminine energy, your life immersed in flowers and ladybugs and giraffes and pink and well, it suits you beautifully. <3 I know we have to run now so I'll end this, but I just want you to know that no man could ever be more loved, more appreciated, more adored than you. 

                                                                    Eternally Yours, 
                                                                                     ~Lynn

PS: I owe you one killer barbecue grill. ;)