The eye of the beholder





I went to grief counseling today. I do that a lot because i'm grieving. We talked about my dead husband, which is mostly what you do in grief counseling. We also talk about my daughters dead daddy.

I told her this story about this Facebook memory that popped up in my feed. It was about seven years ago. Baby girl was around 3. We went to a beach house for a week with Dan's parents. We stayed downstairs and they stayed upstairs. The downstairs door was stuck so every time you wanted to go outside you had to walk up the inside stairs, through the outside door and down the outside stairs to the car. This was a tad obnoxious for unloading luggage. When we were leaving at the end of the week I packed the car up.  Here is the Facebook post From July 2010:

"This is why I love my husband: loading the car at the beach house and the downstairs door is stuck locked. Meaning you have to carry everything upstairs and then back down the outside steps. Dan goes "you already loaded the car?" I go "yes I carried everything up and down the stairs and you didn't even notice" Dan goes "I know, you do that" In a tone implying he was very impressed and that I do that sort of thing all the time. In reality I just fixed the downstairs door which Dan said was equally impressive. Sometimes he thinks I'm superwoman and thats why I love him"

Then Dan commented: "But you are! And I thought you loved me because of my quality cooking and generally laid back nature."

Well I loved him despite that. My point is here that Dan thought I was magic. He thought the everyday simple stuff I did was awesome. He thought me sewing a button back on was incredible. He didn't know how to sew a button after all. He really appreciated that I braided his long hair almost everyday, he didn't know how to braid.  (I taught him and he braided baby girls hair a lot, and mine on occasion) . When I would do something like throw a birthday party, he would go on and on about how I did a fantastic job. I never got it. I never saw what he saw in me. Honestly I still don't. I know he loved me with every fiber of his being. I know he saw something truly amazing in me. I just don't get it. I mean it's not like I'm a hero or even close to one, I didn't save a baby from a burning building, I sewed a button on. I didn't spend my days feeding the homeless, I made my small family dinner about half the time, Dan did the other half.  To Dan though these things were equal, they were just as important, He made me feel like a hero when I found his missing shoes.  He made me believe I had done something great when I remembered where his important papers were.  Because to Dan everything was valuable and everyone had value. He had this magic way of bringing that piece out of people.  He was easy to fall in love with.

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

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