O husband, my husband

Let me tell you one thing: caregivers don't get nearly enough credit for what they do.  My husband deals with my stuttering speech, when I used to match him in throwing sarcastic comments to and fro. He deals with my aphasia despite the fact that it takes me 12 minutes to say a sentence. He deals with having to make almost every meal and clean up the kitchen where that used to be my job. And he does it while making sparkling commentary with an unmatched sense of humor.

During the hospital stay, he mostly pulled 12 hour days with me, never knowing that his presence kept me from falling down the dark pit of despair, after which he would go home to the dogs and cat, feed them and give Henry--our boxer--hugs. And he'd get 5-6 hours of sleep, and he'd wake up and do it all over again.

In the months after my stroke, he'd get me to every damn doctor's appointment and therapy session (I couldn't drive). And he made sure I laughed. Every. Single. Day.

Here is a list of things in no particular order that I still think about:

• Buying me flash cards at the dollar store when I was still in the hospital. Nothing says I "I love you" like holding up a picture of Elmo and saying "I don't know what he's holding--a handful of uncomfortable geese? Chickens? Ducks? Anyway, I need you to count them"
• Making sure I had underpants. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH WHAT A WONDERFUL GIFT THIS WAS AFTER ONE WEEK OF DIAPERS.
• Helping me fill out what I wanted for for meals at the hospital. "May I recommend the chocolate mousse? Or, if you're in the mood for fruit, we have a wide variety of sliced apples."
• Pushing my wheelchair out to a shady spot so I could get some fresh air while he critiqued the job done by the window washers.  "Oh, look at that. They got footprints on the glass. That's going to bring their Yelp review down."
• Bringing me shoes, even though I said they were Fila (they were Adidas) with stars on them (they had stripes)
• Scraping adhesive off my skin when I got the Holter monitor off (which is an ECG device that  apparently was cemented to my skin) 
• Getting tennis balls for my walker: "Don't let the neighbors see; everyone's gonna want them"
• Driving lessons at the Wal-Mart parking lot to ensure I passed the test
• Making up ridiculous 5-word sentences for a speech task: "Henry's farts smell very bad"

He did this knowing he'd never get the girl back who he fell in love with.

And on June 15, 2018, few days shy of a month after my stroke, he married me anyway.