My beloved is sick.
He hasn't been sick like this in years.
He went hunting with our boys this weekend and last weekend just as both boys were finishing a nasty bout of URI (upper respiratory infection) type sicknesses. The end of runny noses. Coughs. Sore throats. They weren't successful in the woods as far as providing meat for our already bulging larders. But they weren't in the woods just for meat. They were there to be together. My husband is quietly teaching our boys to be men. He models strength and Godliness through his actions and uncompromising steadfastness to his family, and his own moral compass. Oh and they really just like hanging out together, too. Unfortunately, Tim picked up the last of the potent germs that were lingering around our sons. And now he is puny.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that somehow women have painted men to be weak and sniveling and ineffective, when they don't feel well. We snicker behind our hands and roll our eyes and gripe about how men can be such babies when they are sick. We put on airs about how men are not tough enough to go through labor and delivery as evidenced by their inability to tolerate a bad head cold or other insignificant ailment. I'm not sure where or how this got started. I know many men are annoying to those who care for them during an illness. And I know many women who test the patience of care givers as well. As a nurse, I'm in a particularly interesting place to observe people when they are sick and vulnerable.
So let me state this now: my husband is not a baby, not when he is sick, not ever. My husband is a man in every sense of the word. He exhibits his strength when he shoulders a physically difficult chore such as changing not one but two flat tires in the dark on the side of a mountain with only the light of a cell phone. And he exhibits his strength when he tenderly, patiently, paces the house hour after hour (for the fifth straight night in a row) with a colicky infant.
Do his feet smell? Sometimes.
Do my feet smell? Sometimes.
Does his breath smell like roses in the morning? Never.
Does mine? Not hardly.
But week after week. Month after month. Year after year my husband shows his character by steadfastly, without complaint, leaving our house to work. He works at a job he loves, to take care of us; but he has to be away from us to work, which he hates. And yet~ he does the work.
I love my husband.
I admire my husband.
I feel in many ways I am better because I married a good man...... in sickness or in health.
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