Memories From The Past...How I Knew He Was The One. (Part II)

It was December 1999. Toby and I had managed to contract a contagious illness from his brother Charlie who thought our living room recliner was a really great place to come and recuperate himself. Covered by a blanket in our recliner for days he lay coughing and feverish. Toby and I were at work most of the day so we really didn't take too much notice to him other than to fetch him some Kleenex or a drink ....until we caught whatever killer germ that he had been spewing all into the living room air.

Thank goodness Lucas was staying with his dad the week during the Christmas holidays. Luckily he was spared the dreaded illness that Toby and I managed to contract. Looking back, it was a real blessing Lucas was not there during that time. Toby and I could not even take care of ourselves, much less take care of a child.

(I will go ahead and mention that also during this time my mother and Toby's dog, Bourbon he had for 5 years were slowly dying as these two details are pertinent to the story.)

Of course, by the time Toby and I got sick Charlie was back to his old self conducting his daily business at the house...washing his car, eating, watching T.V., etc. Toby and I were literally in the bed for 2 days without being able to get up. It was him and I together in sickness..and of course Bourbon laying on the floor in there with us slowly dying. We were both SO weak that neither one of us could get up to take care of ourselves much less each other.

I can remember weakly calling Charlie's name from behind our closed bedroom door in hopes that he would hear me and come and at least bring us a bowl of soup and some water to drink. In the 2 days we were bedridden he never once knocked on the door to even check on us. I guess he thought we were in there having fun. We could have been dead in there and no one would have known for at least a couple of days if not more.

Finally it was Toby who mustered up the strength to crawl out of the bed. You see, among all the sickness that was running amok in our household there was one that was not going to get any better. Bourbon, Toby's dog of five years was very sick and had been for the past few months. We didn't really know what was wrong with her and neither did the vet...that is without paying out a small fortune that we didn't have in vet bills to figure it out.

Although Bourbon was not my favorite animal in the world (she snapped at me anytime I came close to Toby) I still felt sorry for her as I watched her slowly turn to skin and bones. We tried to prod her to eat by giving her people food and real meat but she was on her deathbed shriveling away just as my mother was.

On Christmas eve of the year 1999 my husband got out of his sick bed and located his brother to drive him to the pound to have Bourbon put out of her misery. He was too weak to drive himself but business had to be taken care of. I knew he really wanted me to go with him for moral support. It was one of those times in my life that I just couldn't muster of the physical or mental strength to get out of the bed and be there for him. There was too much sickness and dying going around and I just wanted to stay hidden in the bed until it was all over. I let him down.

As I said my mother was also slowly dying. It was her last year to be with us. As a Christmas gift for her I had been searching for a bed tray that she could use to hold her water, medications, magazines, and other essentials so she wouldn't have to get up and down much after her chemo treatments.

I looked everywhere for a particular bed tray I had seen on sale @ K-Mart. Unfortunately every K-Mart that I had searched was out of the tray.

That Christmas eve, after Toby had done the dirty deed of putting his dog down he took his feverish self into the one K-Mart that I had not been able to check due to my illness, found the bed tray on the shelf, purchased it and brought it home to me so that I would have the gift that I had been looking for to give my mother on Christmas.

At that moment when he walked in carrying the bed tray in his hands with puffy sad eyes from his dog loss but a big smile for me because he had found what he knew would make me happy, I knew I had found the person that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Through all his grief and sickness he had found the time and strength to do something to make someone else happy....me.

Since our first horrible Christmas together he has never let me down not once. Yes, he can frustrate me but through our years together he has been there for me through thick and thin....and believe me with me it's mostly thick. Marriage vows made no difference to us. Our commitment has been to ourselves and our children..they way it's intended to be.

And that, my friends is how I knew Toby was "the one".