Our Faults






Long ago and far away. Well it seems long ago and far away I guess it's been about five years now. Anyway as I mentioned before we were in the process of adopting a baby. Five years ago we were filling out the stacks and stacks and stacks of paperwork you need in order to adopt. Seriously its worse then buying a house. Part of the process was you had to have a personal interview with your agency. So we went. One at a time we were interviewed by this lady. Dan went first. One of the questions she asked both of us was "what is the worst quality of your spouse" So I gave her my answer. Then she told me that in all the people shes ever interviewed those were the nicest worst qualities she has ever heard. That if that was the worst we could see in each other we would be together forever. That most people, even in love people, wanting to adopt can think of some pretty bad things they don't like about their spouses. Well I thought what I said was pretty bad but ok.  So after the interview Dan and I did a i'll tell you mine if you tell me yours about our worst qualities. Are you ready? The're pretty awful. My worst quality according to Dan: I don't believe in myself enough. He wished I would believe in myself more. Dans worst quality according to me: He procrastinates more then anyone I've ever seen in my life. However I have since changed my mind and am going to state that dying prematurely is defiantly his worst quality.

I know I talk a lot about how Dan was fantastically wonderful and my prince charming, and he was. But he did have faults, he did do things that drove me nuts. So since he's not here and I am we are going to talk about his faults and not mine (whew, cause apparently I have issues with that).

He procrastinated. No joke Dan was the biggest procrastinator I've ever known in my life and I am a big time "J" personality, In case you don't know what that means it means I think pretty much everyone in the world procrastinates, and my husband was the worst.  When he graduated from high school he was walking down the aisle with forms his teachers needed to sign before he could graduate. The day we got married 20 minutes before we were supposed to be at the church to get ready he was mowing the lawn, because he promised he'd do it before we left on our honeymoon. All through college he waited till the very last minute to write and turn in papers. That due at midnight clause was for him. back when you had to mail your taxes in by hand he drove to the post office at 11:55 saying"don't worry I have plenty of time" He would make up his Sunday school lessons as he was driving to church.

He never worried. He never worried about anything. he would always say "Don't worry God has it under control" or "what ever is gonna happen is gonna happen so there's no point in worrying about it" I worry a lot. So when things would worry me I was so frustrated that Dan was not also worried about them. But he wasn't usually he would kiss me and hug me and say "it's going to be fine" I can only remember one time ever that I saw Dan truly worried. It was when I was in pre term labor with baby girl and we were being ambulanced to a hospital with a NICU. Dan looked worried then and I knew we were in trouble because he had never looked like that before or since.

He was a ginormous bathroom hog. Ginormous. We only ever had one bathroom and I was regularly pounding on the door for him to get out. It was infuriating when baby girl was potty training cause you know toddlers don't wait for their dads to finish reading to go. Dan had really long hair he was kinda obsessed with. I would tease him that he spent more time on his hair in the bathroom then I did. It's true. He would blow dry it all the time, took forever.

He was a paper hoarder. Stacks and stacks of paper were all over our house, All over his car, All over his office. Anytime he went to any kind of conference or workshop (which was a lot) he would save the papers from it. He saved every single paper from college. He saved church bulletins. I tried and tried in vain to organize them, to get him to sort them, to find places for them to go.  You know what else he saved? Every single note I had ever written him. Every single note he had ever written me. Every single card, every single scribble of "I love you" he saved them all. I have them all.

And I'm done writing now.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle

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