7/18/11 Puffy Pillow and Soggy Sandwich

Yesterday I read a friend’s blog, and she had a post about the little ways that her husband lets her know he loves her. When she would get up at night to feed the baby, he rolled onto her side to keep her spot warm so that she wouldn’t have to get back into cold sheets (she lived in Vermont, and it was apparently freezing.) I got a little teary eyed when I read that because I immediately thought of Jacob.

A little after we got married we went hiking with some friends, and we took a Subway sandwich with us on the hike to eat for lunch. I had to have tomatoes on it because I can’t eat a sandwich without tomatoes. Well, the sandwich sat vertically in Jacob’s backpack for a few hours, and when we sat to eat lunch when we reached our spot, we pulled out the sandwich and the tomatoes had all slid down to the bottom. The bread was so soggy towards the bottom that it was like mush. I complained that I didn’t want soggy sandwich, so Jacob took the soggy half saying that he didn’t mind one bit if it was soggy. I was the one that had to have the tomatoes or I wouldn’t eat it, so it was my fault the sandwich was soggy. But he ate it so I wouldn’t have to, and he did it happily without a single complaint. Nobody likes a soggy sandwich, but he pretended that he did so that I would be happy.

Just a few months ago Teagan threw up on my bed, and he got some on my pillow.  I had to buy a new pillow because it sort of soaked in through the pillowcase down into the pillow. Jacob sleeps with a flat pillow. He HATES a pillow that isn’t flat, and every night he sleeps with the flatter one. That’s just how it’s always been. Well, I bought the new pillow, and new pillows are really puffy when you first buy them so you have to break them in and flatten them. So a few minutes after we had turned the lights off and were going to sleep, I realized that my neck was bent too much from the pillow being too high, so I took the pillow out from under me and said it was just too puffy for me to sleep on. Well, my sweet husband said to me, “Let’s just trade, and I’ll sleep on it until it flattens.” So he slept on that pillow for the next several days until it flattened, and he did it so willingly, so kindly. He hates puffy pillows, but he sure does love me.

It was just a pillow and just a sandwich, but what it really was was that he was sacrificing his comfort and happiness to make sure that I was happy because he wanted me to be happy. I didn’t beg or plead or persuade him to sleep on that pillow or eat that mushy bread, but he so sweetly thought of me before he thought of himself. He does so many things that assure me that he is genuinely devoted to me, and it sometimes is ridiculous to hear him tell me how much he loves me. The thing is is that without him saying it, I feel it each day, and I trust his love that it will always be there. I’ve been in a place where I so badly wanted to feel the love and approval of my husband, where I wondered if he loved me but most of the time was sure he just didn’t, and I hated that place. I haven’t been in that place since the day I married Jacob. In his arms, I am always warm and safe and adored, and I love that. I love that security, and I love that his love for me is sincere and kind. I am his world, and it isn’t in his words alone that I reminded of that.