Between the Lines of those Marriage Vows

He's not perfect.  He hasn't showered in two days.  The bathroom hasn't been cleaned since I injured myself in the beginning of December.  The vacuum has been run once.  When I finally got up the strength to wander around the apartment with my walker, I was shocked at the amount of stuff he had strewn everywhere.  Sometimes he gets impatient with the kitten when she does kitten-like things like play with boxes and try to jump in the refrigerator. He roots for the Chicago Bears. He reads Charles Dickens for pleasure (Dickens should only be read as punishment - am I right?).  He doesn't like to listen to audiobooks in the car.

But he refills my water glass (with three cubes of ice and water) a dozen times a day.  He feeds me and the cat with nary a word of complaint whenever we ask for food.  He has created an Excel spreadsheet to help him keep track of my medications and pain level.  He watches endless episodes of MythBusters and Dirty Jobs with me, never suggesting an alternative pastime.  He cleans the litterbox nightly, albeit whining the whole time, without me nagging or reminding him.  He does all the grocery shopping by himself.  He takes me to the library once a week.  He takes two trips down to the car whenever we have to go anywhere, first moving the car closer and then bringing me down with my pillows.  He helps me shower, dress, and bathe.  He is never impatient with me when I am slow or request a break. 

All the while he is doing these caretaking activities, he is also working.  He is writing syllabi, lectures, and papers. He is doing research and reading arcane political theory texts of boringness.  He is job hunting for something with a little more stability and spends hours every week looking at job openings and sending out materials.  He is worrying about his mother's chemotherapy appointments, his sister's weekly pregnancy checkups, and our niece's next trip to the cerebral palsy specialist.  He is, in short, still living his life.

I recognize his shortcomings, oh yes I do.  But to me, he is going above and beyond the call of husbandly duty.