When I walked in the room and saw this, I had to take a picture, because to me, this is what love looks like.
No, it’s not what you’d seen on the cover of a marriage book, or a clip from a romantic movie. Nothing about this immediately makes your heart go flutter.
But it says so much to me.
Because this is the picture of a man who has faithfully loved his wife for 46 years today. This is the man, who at 75-years-old, is sleeping on a cot in a hospital room so that his wife never has to be alone.
This is the man who has heroically stood beside her through fourteen years of Parkinson’s, through countless surgeries and broken bones, through doctors visits, and thousands of meals cooked, through changing her and dressing her and showering her and loading her in and out of the chair, the car, the bed. This is the man who makes it his daily goal to make her smile before breakfast.
This is the man who wept beside her bed, saying goodbye before she went in for her last surgery. This is the man who gives up sleep, comfort, pleasures, and pursuits, in order to take care of his wife.
This is love.
And she has loved him well too. This is the woman who has given her life to love and serve him. This is the woman who traveled to endless sporting events to watch him play, coach, ref. This is the girl who fixed up old campers and worked on cars. This is the girl who made his favorite meals for almost 4 decades, before she was forced to hand over the kitchen to him.
I’ve never seen such selfless love. And so today, on their 46th anniversary, I just wanted to say: Thank you, Dad & Mom, for being faithful for 46 years, through the highs and lows, thick and thin. Thank you for showing us what love looks like. I love you so much.
{No matter where we are in life, or how we’ve failed in the past, may we all love like this now. Thanks for reading.}