It's 5:30 am and I've just popped the kettle on. In half an hour, I'll walk down to catch the first bus of a long public transit ride back to Victoria, where my car is waiting with the flat tire I got trying to get here. I see that it's raining, and I left my raincoat at home. Great.
Once back in Victoria, it's work until seven, ride home in the dark and try to make something reasonably healthy for supper without making too many dishes. Right around this time, I'll probably get a call from my wife. She'll have spent her day on Saltspring Island, dealing with patients (no coincidence that word's a homonym for "patience"), wrestling with recalcitrant computers, sorting through the four thousand emails she gets every day, and other fun things like that. She will tell me about her day, I will tell her about mine. We will both say, "I love you," and then we'll hang up and go to bed.
Now, I hope you appreciate me typing all this out at five in bloody morning, because it is the Greatest Love Story Ever Told.
At least, it is so to me.
Some time ago, two friends of ours got married, and the first sentence of the groom's speech has stuck with me like a little Post-It note for the soul. Peter, an individual with infinite charm, got up there in front of his new wife and assembled families and friends and said, "I know this is the part where I'm supposed to say how great my wife is and how crap I am but in this case, it's really true!" Cue big laugh from everyone. Cue quiet, "Holy shit, me too!" moment from me.
Now I'm not going to bang on here about what a useless, feckless, generally disorganized lump I can be, or wonder why my lovely, active, big-hearted wife continues to love a man who is basically Eyeore with red hair. Matter of fact, from time to time she can be imperfect too. What I will say is that there's always a little voice in the back of my head when she says "I love you," that responds "You do? Why?"
It's not that I doubt the love, it just staggers me. It's why it took me so long to get together with her in the first place. It's why I kind of flubbed my vows. It's why at least once today, somebody will walk up to me and ask why I have such a stupid grin on my face.
You may say the proof of love is in grand gestures, or quiet moments together, or the thousand small daily sacrifices that a couple makes for each other. For me though, it's like Paul McCartney said, "Baby, I'm amazed at the way you love me all the time."
I hope you have as good a Valentine's day as I will, but I doubt it.
Katie, love you, sweetheart.
-Brendan
