TO HAVE AND TO HOLD

(Disclaimer: I’m writing this under the fog of having a newborn, it’s soppy, but every word is true.)

Dear Husband

We’re into our second week as a family of 4, and it’s been the most beautiful, but also the most daunting thing I think we’ve been through as a family.

I know I’m not the mother and wife I was when I was a mother to only Nova, there’s more to love now and more to do, and it feels like there’s less of me to do it.

I want you to know that I have never loved you more, never admired you more than I have the last 14 days.

I remember that day I sat at the kitchen counter, bare-chested, with broken skin, hunched over a bowl of cereal, and feeling more tender than I ever have. You looked at me, you saw me, and you started singing “You are so beautiful to me”, and it tore me down and built me up all at the same time.

I know the endless grocery runs and “please go get me’s” have been exhausting. I know spending so much of your time with Nova so that I can learn who I am as a mother to Vida has not been without it’s trials, even though I know you love it.

But I want you to know that I see what you’re doing, I know you’re loving me in this way.

I realise now that love isn’t just portrayed in a soft touch or quiet moment between the two of us, Love adapts and adjusts to the seasons we’re in.

Right now, love looks like you not leaving my side for over 24 hours in the hospital while we labored to bring Vida into this world. Love looks like your hand on my back at 2am while I feed our baby. It’s you whispering to me that I’m strong when it’s the last thing I think I am. It looks like you fetching Nova from school, doing the dishes, keeping the house neat and tidy. Love looks like this for now. And it makes me feel safe and calm and so cared for.

I’ve never prayed over you in the early hours of the morning and thanked God for you more than I have over the last 14 days.

Gratitude has a whole new meaning to me, and it’s the overwhelming sense, it’s the beautiful ache I’m left with when I think of you.

On our wedding day, I made a speech, and in it I quoted a line from Shakespeare: “Then how can it be said I am alone. When all the world is here to look on me. For you, my dear, are all the world to me.”

Never have these words ever been more true. Thank you for seeing me, for looking at me the way you have the last 14 days. For loving me the way you have. And for making me feel not so alone, in what can be considered a very lonely season.

Often, it’s just the mothers who are praised when a new life is brought into the world, it’s the mothers who get the gifts and the looks of admiration when people meet the newborn for the first time. But I’ve come to realise that a good man, a good father, deserves as much of the praise as the new mother. God knows I would not have managed the last while without you.

You are so beautiful to me...