This, above all:

This, above all: To be God's best for The Coach and for Anna

Friday, April 07, 2006

In his eyes

Twenty years ago last January 9, The Coach and I started dating: he was 19, I was 18, and the rest of the world in our eyes was fresh and wonderful and passionate and carefree.

The Coach, now 40, surprised me with an enormous bouquet of flowers, so many they filled three vases and took me an hour to fix (plus another half-hour to clean up after my mess). Silly me, I couldn’t help asking if they were expensive. (We are, after all, penny-pinching. Actually, he does the pinching; I do the inordinate buying of books which will take me, if I were to read a book a week, about, oh, ten years to finish.) His rebuke was so gentle I almost missed it until I thought about it afterwards. He just said, “A bit, but not for twenty years,” and smiled. Hours later he asked me if it was true that I was surprised by his present, since he always buys me flowers anyway, special occasion or no, like when he atones for sins imagined or real. And I said yes because I thought we were cost-cutting (D’oh! There I go again). And he harrumphed, properly, like an old gentleman aggrieved by the indignity of money: “Cost-cutting, cost-cutting. What's cost-cutting to twenty years?” And I just had to hug this man, this one whose masculine eyes and heart could not see that some of the flowers he bought in the huge bunch had probably withered earlier but were artfully hidden by the flower peddler to make a quick buck, the same eyes and heart who tell me day after day, truthfully, wonderingly, that I am more beautiful today than yesterday. I love eyes like those, because they know when to skip over unwashed faces and past flabby thighs, and even the occasional PMS that furrows the forehead. And it is true, what he said over a year ago, looking up at me while we were rummaging the fridge for leftovers: “Jan, would you agree with me? That we are happier now than we have ever been?”

Yes, honey, we truly are.

13 comments:

sairo said...

holy banana, this is the second time today that i cried after reading something about being married for years. i'm reviewing this book of korean poems in english translation by hwang ji-woo. i decided to read in the laundry room while waiting for my clothes to dry and "To My Wife Growing Old" just unleashed this niagara of tears and snot, i could hear my own sobs echoing against the tiled walls. buti na lang i was alone. my friends might have thought i had shrunk yet another wool sweater (which i did last saturday).

janet said...

oh, sweetie. just in case that poem and this post blew love & marriage all out of proportion, lemme tell you that jo and i had to work hard to grow our relationship. we weren't all about flowers and hugs every day. many were the days when he or i felt like running away. we too had what chari calls the "ordinary madness of marriage." :)

in the end, love is a decision: you love, regardless.

katz rivera said...

wow! i envy you so much. i wish my love life is as romantic as yours. *sigh* too bad my bf's idea of romance is cooking for me, which isn't so bad since i get to fill up on food.

i agree with you on the subject of love. love is an active decision. either you do it or you don't.

more love to you and your hubby in the years to come. (i wish i end up marrying my bf too..*sigh*)

janet said...

hey, katz, that you? =) oh, you should be so lucky that your boyfriend cooks for you. The Coach is terribly inept in the kitchen. sigh.

the thing about marrying your first (and only) boyfriend is you never get to know how well other guys kiss. so if The Coach will ask me if he kisses well, i can honestly tell him that i never had better. heh.

KV said...

OMG, twenty years :) *sigh* You guys are just the sweetest couple I've ever known!

"Jan, would you agree with me? That we are happier now than we have ever been?"

Haaay :) I only hope and pray to find a man who'll treat me the way he treats you! :)

janet said...

Thanks, KVs. As for you, you deserve to be treated like a queen.

KV said...

Awww... Thanks, Janet :) I've yet to find my king then :p No rush though, as the queen's enjoying her singlehood! :)

KV said...

As for you, you deserve to be treated like a queen.

I found my man, Janet :) Most people may think that it's too early say, but I just know :)

KV said...

And can I just say that he DOES treat me like a queen? :) *sigh*

Sorry, I'm cheezily, crazily, mushily in love :p

janet said...

Yey for you, Kayvs! Stay giddy for as long as you can. Oh to be in love like in the first moments...

KV said...

Hehe, I know! :) It's crazy that I can't stop myself from smiling sometimes :p

janet said...

Haha! Then don't stop. Bayaan mo the rest of the world. May they only be as happy as you are.

KV said...

Hehe, I like that. Bahala silang lahat. I'm happy, he's happy, we're happy. So we'll keep on being happy, we don't care if we look silly :p