category: Blog
In honor of Thanksgiving this week, I plan on being very cliché and reporting everyday about what I am most thankful for in my life. I will put my thanks in no particular order, just whatever happens to come to my mind that day.
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Today, I’m thankful for my husband, Steve. Our relationship isn’t typical, he had to be almost killed before he realized how much he loved me…I guess you could say he’s a little stubborn.
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We met in 2001 and I knew immediately that he was the man I would marry someday. He was handsome, smart and most of all he could make me laugh like no one else could. He isn’t a man that jumps in to anything quickly; he has to think everything through, which bothered me to no end. We had our ups and downs, like all relationships do. The fact that I knew we were meant to be together and he wasn’t sure he was ready to stay with anyone forever put a strain on our relationship. In 2004 we decided to go on a “break”. However, we couldn’t stay away from each other completely; we would still go out on dates every now and then, just to get our fix of each other.
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In May of 2005, I got a call from his sister that would change my life forever. She told me that Steve had been in a helicopter
filming an off road race and the helicopter crashed. Through my immediate tears, I heard her say that they didn’t know if he was going to make it. She said that he couldn’t talk, but he had tried to spell out my name with his hands, he said he wanted me there. However, when I made plans to come see him, he refused. No one would let me in to see the man that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I wrote him a letter every day for a while and gave it to his sister. She told me that she didn’t know if he read them, because he couldn’t use his hands and he refused to let her read them to him. So, they sat there waiting for him to read when and if he could.
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I survived this time with a breaking heart, wanting to be there with him, wanting to care for him. I received daily updates from his sister and read updates on the internet forums dedicated to him. About 3 months after the crash I found out he was dating someone (as much as he could “date”). He reconnected with a girl from high school when she found out about the crash. As you can imagine, this killed me. I hurt more than I ever imagined I could hurt. I always thought that once he was a little better, he would come back to me, that he would want me to help care for him, but that wasn’t what happened after all. So, I did what I could to move on. I ended up looking up someone from my past and having a long distance relationship with him. All the while, I was still keeping track of Steve via his sister. I never let him out of my heart.
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As my long distance relationship was fizzling, I received an email from Steve that melted my heart in an instant. He told me he read all of my letters and that he never stopped loving me. He didn’t think I would have been able to handle seeing him the way he was and he couldn’t handle me seeing him that way. He didn’t ever want me seeing him as weak as he was, like that would take away his masculinity in my eyes somehow. (Of course he was crazy to think that and I told him so). I wrote him back telling him I was leaving the relationship I was in (he had already left his relationship) and that I would love to meet up with him again.
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I won’t lie; the first time I saw him I saw his burns, I saw his scars, I saw all of the ways he had changed. I wanted to cry that he went through what he did and I wasn’t there and I wanted to scream at him for not letting me be there. But, I couldn’t help hold his hand that night as we walked down the pier in Huntington Beach, he always had my heart.
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We have been together ever since. I know that the crash and our time apart was just what our relationship needed. It may be a little drastic for some, but for us it was perfect. We didn’t realize how perfect we were for each other until we almost lost each other for good.
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I cherish every day I have with my husband. Every time I feel his scars when I touch his arms or kiss his lips, I am reminded how short life is. I will never waste my second chance with him.
