"Reflections On Married Life..."

"Happy Birthday Ed!"

My husband's birthday was last week, so that morning, I got up early to bake him a cake.  I was once a professional pastry chef, so expectations tend to be high when I say I'm going to make you something.  And although I had a bad toothache that started a few days before, I didn't let it stop me making his cake.  Oh, yeah, Joni (our cat), he helped too, see below :-)

After baking the cake layers, I went in to work for a bit, but left early to go to the dentist.  I came by home to pick up the husband, who wanted to go with me.  I spent almost four hours in the dentist's chair... it turned out that I needed a surgical extraction of an impacted molar that I'd broken while chewing ice (I love to eat ice, don't know why).  I also had a mild allergic reaction to the anesthetic, so this was not a "good" visit to the dentist.

I'd already promised the husband dinner out at one of his favorite restaurants, P.F. Chang's.  So when we got back home, I iced and decorated the cake and then rested for a bit before we headed off to dinner.  I really didn't feel up to being out that night, but I didn't let Ed know that, after-all, it was his special day. So after a few minutes, I got up, changed the bloody gauze in my mouth, put on a brave face and off we went.  

When we arrived, I must have been quite a sight to the fellow in the car we parked across from as I reached into my mouth to extract the blood soaked gauze that I'd been biting down on for the last hour trying to get the wound in my mouth to stop bleeding.  But Ed was happy and excited to be celebrating his birthday  and I was happy that he was enjoying himself (I don't think he even noticed me taking the gauze out).

Once we got seated, I was beginning to feel some pain as the anesthetics were wearing off.  So I decided to have a drink.  Ed ordered one too and we toasted his birthday.  Then we ordered a wonderful four course  meal that I wondered how I'd eat.  But when the soups and appetizer came, I managed to lightly chew things enough to swallow... everything tasted a bit salty though, and I realized that it was from the new bleeding void in my mouth.  Nevertheless, we both enjoyed ourselves as we people watched and tried to eat all the food we'd ordered.  We still ended up taking quite a bit of our meal home, as I ate a lot less than I might have otherwise done. But the drinks did the trick, I wasn't feeling anything as we left the restaurant.

Then it was back home so I could sing "Happy Birthday" complete with a missing tooth lisp and a "not quite druken" slur as Ed cut his cake.  The cake turned out really nicely, it was rich and flavorful and it didn't look bad either, especially considering how I was feeling as I decorated it.

And this little reflection I've shared is what love and marriage is all about... It's about caring and making sacrifices and celebrating life.  In my work (death care industry), I've come to realize just how precious every moment of our lives should be to us.  We only get to come this way once, so we should make the best of it that we can.  Live and love honestly and openly, that's what I say. Because...

"Fear Eats the Soul"