My Valentine

One of the things that I love about my husband is that, after 10 Valentine's Days together, he still finds ways to surprise me. Now, I am not talking about, "Wow! He hid Michael Buble tickets under my breakfast plate" types of surprises. Those are rather few and far between since the kids entered the picture. I am talking about the ways in which he regularly unveils facets of his personality that I don't expect.

Here's my story:

A couple of years ago, in our old house, I was poking around the cabinet under the sink and found evidence of an intruder. I called my hubby at work and he said he would deal with it when he got home. I was a little confused when he didn't enter the door with a box of mouse poison or a trap, but instead put a small dab of peanut butter on the end of a stick and propped it up against a glass vase under the sink. A fairly simple trap, but no doubt complicated enough that a mouse wouldn't see it coming. Our little friend would be stuck in the vase and we could humanly set him free.

There you have it. My husband, the pacifist. I was touched that he didn't want to take any sort of pent-up aggression out on this poor little defenseless mouse. A lot of people might think it was nothing, but I think that day kick-started a lesson that I have been learning ever since: Kindness is rather undervalued sometimes.

Lately, I have also realized just how long my husband and I will (hopefully) be together. I'm figuring we've got a good (knock on wood) 50 years more to go. That's a lot of pleasant surprises.