Where love is ...

I am on Day Five, recovering from a bilateral mastectomy.  (See previous post.)  Any sense of glamour or physical appeal I may have mustered up in the past, is gone.  And along with the oddly-shaped alien who has replaced what I used to see in the mirror, for the first week or two, I have to wear some very unattractive appendages to allow for post-surgery drainage, that must be attended to each day.  The total ensuing package is not pretty, to say the least.

Physically, I could manage the post-op maintenance by myself.  I'm not completely incapacitated.  It'd be hard, but doable.  But I don't have to, thankfully.

I am learning yet again that I chose well, over 40 years ago and just shy of turning 21 years old, when I married the dearest man alive.    Wherever the wisdom came from that motivated such a decision in someone so young, I'll never know.   We walked into marriage about as naively as a couple of babies. And if I could go back and do it again, I wouldn't change anything ...... (Well maybe I'd rethink a few of my clothing and hair-style choices in some of the photos ..... but it was the 70s.  The whole decade was tacky.)

I am definitely not the cute young chick he married so long ago.  All the typical sagging, wrinkling, drooping, expanding, receding, and graying have taken their toll.  And now this.

Yet, I have never felt more loved.  This is the real thing.  It's not the "for better" that makes a marriage.  It's hanging in there through the "worse".  It's the trust to put oneself entirely in the hands of another who is there because they want to be.  It's feeling safe and protected while feeling vulnerable and needy.    Love is not flowers and candy, dinner dates and long walks on the beach.  It's taking care of each other by tenderly and willingly doing what needs to be done, and not being grossed out when most people would be.  It's being a team.  It's the long haul.  It's commitment in every sense of the word.  

So one of the many silver linings in this seemingly dark little cloud, is that love is real, powerful, and lasting .... and it's here in our little home-on-wheels.