This is what Love is. . .

I ate something last night for supper that hated me. It waited until I'd been in bed for about 30 minutes before it began its assault on my gastro-intestinal system. It started with a niggling kind of nausea, then mushroomed into a threateningly unstable mass of cramps and near-hurling. (This probably wouldn't have been so bad if I weren't of the firm belief that no one over the age of 12 should have to vomit.) I moaned. I groaned. I sucked down Pepto-Bismol. I was prone. I was prostrate. I was on my elbows and knees on the bed with my face into the pillow and my eschrichtius robustus abdomen dangling in the middle so as not to cause undue pressure.

After about an hour or so the pain subsided and I was able to curl up on my side of the bed normally to sleep.

And then, just before 5:00 a.m. I was awakened by the internal three-alarm terrorism-in-the-gut warning that signals the time to jump out of bed and run to the bathroom before it could expulso inappropriately. While I sat this out, I heard the alarm ring and ring and ring and ring.

My husband didn't once complain. He asked if there was anything he could do to help. He wasn't cranky in the morning. He offered sympathy and comforting words. I was not beautiful. I was not charming. I was nothing in the least that could be considered desirable, certainly nothing like the bewitching woman he met on a bus tour sixteen years ago or the laughing bride fifteen years ago or the beautiful woman he sees now and then when I dress up for something special.

This is what love is.