Thursday, July 31, 2014

There Is A Reason I Call Him Mr. Marvelous

When we first got married, Mr. Marvelous would show up at the school where I taught every month on the eighteenth and bring me a dozen roses.  He would wait until almost the end of school, peek around the corner to make sure I was finished, and walk in with a big grin and a dozen roses.  Sometimes the day was finished and the kids were gone.  Sometimes they were still there (and they loved it!).  For one year I got roses every single month. 

Since then, I have gotten a lot of roses, although not every single month.  I have gotten roses for every anniversary.  I have gotten roses for my birthday.  I have gotten roses on Mother's Day.  I have gotten roses just out of the blue for no particular reason at all.

I started a tradition during that first year of marriage.  Once the roses started to wilt, I would pull them off the stems and put the petals in a basket to dry.  The basket ~ or another incarnation of it ~ has lived on my dresser all these years.  I don't think there has ever been a time when it got completely empty.  It has been challenging at times to convince Mr. Marvelous' kitten that the petals belong to ME and not to HER, but I think I have won that battle.

A couple of weeks ago Mr. Marvelous had to go spend a week in Wisconsin for training on some new equipment his company is servicing.  He had to be gone over our 27th anniversary.  When he was coming home I had the computer logged onto the airline website all day that let me track his flights (I kept waiting for Homeland Security to come knocking at my door!).  We sent each other little text messages when he was between flights and he called when he got safely back to the Birmingham airport, so I had a rough idea of when he would walk in.  I was ready!  When I heard the van I went running out the front door and there he was walking up the walkway....with a dozen roses in his hand!

They were beautiful lavender roses; a color I hadn't seen and that doesn't sound as lovely as they really are.








When the petals began to wilt, I pulled them and put them into the current basket.










I looked at the bare stems and I suddenly felt like Morticia Addams.


Mr. Marvelous was amused!

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