Newfie June - how she met her true love

Valentine's Day has been described as a holiday that card manufacturers came up with to move merchandise. That may, actually, be true. I used to not be particularly fond of the day. I felt it put pressure on everyone. So soon after Christmas, most of us can't afford to buy a gift. A little token of our affection should be enough.

In all of my "single years", with the many boyfriends and beaus I had, I was never "seeing" anyone on Valentine's Day. I swear it was a conspiracy; or the men I knew were so cheap that they would break off relationships just before February so they didn't have to buy a girl anything. All of that changed the year I met my husband. That made me fully appreciate romantic love.

In my Newfie June column I always talk about my parents, siblings and other relatives, but I don't talk about my dear husband. He is quite a private person and I don't want to embarrass him. This is, however, the twenty-fifth Valentine's Day that he and I have celebrated together and I thought I would share a few thoughts on love and marriage.

My husband and I met at work; on the gynaecology unit of one of the city's general hospitals. Before you get weird ideas, I should tell you that I was the night nurse and he was a medical intern. I will never forget the first time I set eyes on him. He was one of a group of interns being taken on a first-day tour of the unit. He was tall and lean and wore a pair of navy blue cords. Those pants looked great from behind, shall we say.

Anyway, we worked together almost every day for the next three months, while he was completing his obs. /gynae. rotation. I really liked him, but didn't realize the feelings were mutual because he was too quiet and shy to say much.

Finally, on his last shift of the rotation, I had to call him in the middle of the night to attend to a fresh post-operative patient who was receiving blood. Her I/V had blocked and had to be re-started. We briefly talked when he arrived on the unit to see the patient, and I discovered it was his birthday. I said that it was too bad I didn't know before, as I would have arranged for a surprise (nurses would squirt the interns and residents, on celebrations, with a fleet enema that had all sorts of added goodies like iodine, castor oil, magnolax, etc). He somehow thought I meant I would give him a birthday kiss! I swear the word "kiss" had never been mentioned!

Anyway, after the patient had been taken care of, the chart written up, and all was settled down again, he got up to leave the unit and head back to quarters for some rest. Suddenly, he reached over and gave me the most tender and beautiful kiss a girl could imagine! Astounding for a guy as shy as he was. This all happened at about 4 o'clock in the morning so no patients were about. I was embarrassed to find out later that two little student nurses, who were on duty with me that night, witnessed the event.

Well, we had our first date a couple of days later and six months after that we married. We each knew that we had met our life-mate.

It was a real blizzard the day we married. About ten inches of snow fell during the day and evening. As I walked back down the church aisle on the arm of my new husband, there, in one of the back pews of the church, were the two little student nurses who had seen our initial kiss. They looked totally soaked and red-cheeked as they had walked about four miles from the nurse's residence to the church, in that blizzard!

The long and the short of it is that this is twenty five years later. We are still married and more in love than ever. We have had some trying times along the way, like everyone else. None of us is perfect but I think he is the most perfect of all men for me. I have a theory that we all have faults and idiosyncrasies. We know that the match is correct when we meet someone whose little habits don't bother us a bit. For example, my sister-in-law tells me that she could never live with my husband as he squeezes the toothpaste tube from the middle. That drives her insane! It doesn't bother me a bit. My snoring doesn't seem to bother my husband a bit, but some of his friends complain loudly if their wives snore briefly while in the throws of a bad cold. You get the idea.

So if you are in a relationship and wonder if it's the "right Valentine" for you; sit down and ask yourself if they do anything that drives you nuts and you would have to change that habit to live with them. If the answer is yes, then keep looking. How they are when you meet them is likely how they are going to stay. You either love all of them or it ain't right.

If you haven't already met "your match", then good hunting. If you have your soul mate by your side, take the time to tell them how much they mean to you.

So have a LOVEly Saint Valentine's Day!

© Newfie June




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