Yesterday morning I woke to the sounds of my husband making coffee, and I gazed groggily at my phone to see the time. I thought I recalled something about him having to leave for work earlier than usual, so I pulled myself from bed too. Coffee did sound nice.
As I imagined he would be my husband buzzed around hurriedly getting ready for work. I got a quick kiss of course, but otherwise there was little time available for conversation. He seemed distracted and intent to leave on time.
He didn’t even tell me he loved me.
I had collected my coffee and the children were starting to stir when suddenly I heard my husband call out from the kitchen, “Why is the floor wet in here?”
I got up quickly and met him staring peculiarly at the puddle coming from the sink area. Both huge sink basins were full of dishes I’ll admit, and dirty water reached almost the lip of each one. I watched with a grimace as my husband went to let the drain out, and that’s when he said, “There’s no stopper. They’re both clogged up.”
Then it hit me, and sheepishly I uttered, “It’s my fault.”
In the almost 30 years I had been cooking ground beef I had never poured grease down my sink without a hot water chaser, but the prior night I had. I had been frazzled, in a hurry, per usual, to get supper made, and I could easily recall me dumping a pan full of grease with the ultimate intention of taking care of it later. All I had done, though, was clog up my sink, and I knew it was hardened grease just like a clogged artery that prevented the flow of the tap.
The sinks being full of cold, dirty water didn’t help the solution of the situation, but straight away my husband began to fix the problem. With a little initiative, time, a bucket, and a hair dryer we both watched proudly as the water began to quickly spiral down the drain. But the thing was, time wasn’t something he really had to spare that morning.
He would be late, but he didn’t say anything about it. I kissed him for giving me my sink back, and he just smiled sweetly. He had been held up by me not thinking, yet it didn’t seem to bother him at all. He just headed quickly out the door.
I had told him I loved him, and he had said it back, but that wasn’t the thing that made me smile as I stood in his absence beside a dirty sink. The thing was, he didn’t just tell me that he loved me. He showed me.
His actions spoke just as loud, and even louder than his words. Although being late for work to help his dear wife with the plumbing was huge, it wasn’t just a clogged up sink. It was everything. The way he helped with the children at night after he had worked all day, or the way he listened when I rambled about topics I knew weren’t as important to him as they were to me.
When I was down and out he picked up on it immediately. He knew when to make me laugh, when to hug me tight, and when to simply just nod agreeably as I ranted.
He listened, he helped me, and he spoke my love language just perfectly. It just so happens that most of the time our love language involved never uttering a thing, but simply showing one another we cared.
My husband didn’t tell me he loved me. He told me, and then more importantly he backed up his words.
