Love Letter

Like we have discussed, Kevin is applying for medical school and I am helping him with his personal statement. As fun as it has been, the best part was sneaking in a paragraph about me.

It kind of felt like I was writing a love letter to myself from Kevin's perspective. What I wish he would write to me. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to marry someone who was just like me. Scribbling poems everywhere they go, crying when they see a Degas print at Hobby Lobby and watching Wicker Park for the hundredth time just to see the end scene where The Scientist comes on and Diane Kruger sits on the floor in the airport and Josh Hartnett hugs her from behind. As fun as it is to fantasize about, as a couple we would be an over-emotional wreck.

Instead of showing his love for me in poetry, Kevin surprises me with a bag of chocolate covered cinnamon bears and the promise of watching Modern Family if I let him study for an hour. He listens intently when I weepily read him a paragraph (or page) from my latest book, and lets me buy Greek Yogurt from the grocery store even though he thinks it is a waste of money.

And he smiles when he reads this paragraph from his personal statement:

"Although being a campus EMT was a volunteer position I used my training one summer and worked as a Health Counselor for a camp in New Hampshire. I mainly helped campers with diabetes regulate their blood sugar and treated those with heat stroke. It was there that I met my wife though, who has taught me that courage comes in many forms. She was perfect. She radiated beauty and life and health. She was out of my league. Fortunately she had a plethora of ill campers in her group, and we connected over fevers and diarrhea. Evenings when we had free time, we would lie under a giant oak tree on a hill and watch people pass us on the street. She told me she was afraid of falling in love, but I gathered the strength of the universe and told her I loved her anyway. We were married a year later, and I still tell her that marrying me was the bravest thing she ever did. She agrees."

Nothing wrong with writing about your husband calling you perfect and radiant and beautiful. Nothing wrong with that at all.

photo by Kristin Brown