I Know What Real Love Is

After Jed showed us so clearly that he loves us by trying to feed us, I started thinking about love.

“Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love.”

Love makes the world go ’round, so says musicians, poets, and the Bible. Love makes all things possible…or at least bearable.

As FPIES/food allergy/fructose malabsorbative families, we are bombarded daily with stresses and challenges ‘normal’ families can’t even imagine.

I’ve written before about coping strategies to deal with parenting a special needs child, but this thought of love combined with Thanksgiving right around the corner made me feel like revisiting one particular coping skill: Love.

There’s all sorts of love out there; the love of friends, the love for our parents, the love for our children, but today I’m sort of marinating on the love of your spouse.

As parents, we can easily let that love take a backseat to the demands of our adorable little hell-raisers; that is especially true when your children have special needs.

I recently had that truth shoved in my face (in the nicest way possible).

Now, before I begin, let me state that Darrel is not perfect.

He has annnoying habits. He can walk in to a disaster of a room and not see what needs doing. He procrastinates at times.

But that man loves me in a way I never thought possible, and I don’t take nearly enough time to focus on that.

It’s easy to do; we’ve grown accustomed to thinking love shows up as flowers, candlelight, and soft music.

But I know what REAL love is.

Real love is Darrel being there for every minute of both labor and deliveries for our children.

It’s him sticking to Jed like glue in the first hours after he was born; never letting him out of his sight while he was examined, poked, and prodded, and whisked off to the NICU.

Real love is Darrel going head-to-head with our inept and incompetent doctors and nurses after Jed’s delivery, fighting to get me and our son the right answers and the right care when I was too sick and drugged to take care of myself.

It’s routinely letting me sleep in on the weekends and taking over breakfast duties for me, so I can have at least a slight break from the routine.

Real love is Darrel’s no-holds-barred willingness to do whatever it takes to keep our boys healthy: strange diets, flying out of state for medical care, joining online groups of mostly other moms to read and learn about the conditions we deal with.

It’s the way he has loved, accepted, and wanted me no matter what the circumstances; he thinks I’m perfect and gorgeous regardless of whether I’m tipping the scales at 190 or 127.

Real love is the way he puts himself on the front lines of anything that comes our way.

Recently, thanks to forgetfulness, disorganization, and being overwhelmed, I made a mistake. A mistake which could have been very bad for Darrel.

Without going into details, I will say it resolved fairly painlessly and things are fine…but my angst over what could have happened due to my screw up was tremendous.

While this was going on, I realized Darrel hadn’t mentioned it to anyone – not even family. When I commented on that, he said “Well, there’s no point in it. It just makes you look bad for no good reason.”

And THAT, right there, is Real Love.

Even when I messed up – and messed up in a way that could directly hurt him – he thought first of defending me against any negative fallout.

We don’t have actual Knights in Shining Armor these days, but he is most definitely my Champion.

And he has been since the day I met him.

Now, nearly five years into our marriage, I was reminded of the way he loves me. The way he honors and defends me.

While telling all of this to him, I commented about how it’s easy to forget the marital bond when you’re in the thick of parenting. Especially when parenting sick kids.

He said “Yeah, it’s been hell. But there’s no one I’d rather go through hell with than you.”

Who needs roses and candlelight, right?

I’m telling these Darrel stories only partially  to shout out about how amazingly good my husband is, and how lucky that makes me.

The rest of the purpose comes from my realization that while many parents are single, or in truly destructive and unhappy marriages, lots of us are, in fact, married to amazing people…and have gotten out of the habit of noticing.

As we stumble through the parenting jungle, the FPIES puzzle, or just the drudgery of daily life, one source of tremendous strength and encouragement is the love of our spouse.

It seemed so sad to me, that moment in my marriage, when I realized how many opportunities to tell or show Darrel how much I love and appreciate him I have let pass by due to general busy-ness and complacency.

And since we’re all dealing with something  in this life, I felt a gigantic urge to share this with you in hopes that it would encourage those of you with great spouses to take a little time to look past the dirty laundry (or whatever your particular issue) and recognize your spouse for the amazing, loving person they are.

Take the time to tell them – or, better yet, show them that you see them. Really see them.

You see the ways they make your life better. The way they love you. The way they make you feel safe and cared for. The way they’d walk through fire for you and your children.

The way their heart beats.

It’s never a mistake to notice your blessings and give thanks for them.

Especially when that blessing is your spouse.

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Do you ever notice that you’ve started to take your spouse for granted? How do you remind yourself to not do that? How do you show your spouse you love them as much as they love you?