Filling Up the Days

For weeks I'd looked forward to these lazy days, filled with nothing but precious time with my children and catching up on the dozens of hours of neglected TV sitting idle for months on my DVR.  My life during the last few years had been so busy that for some reason I believed that once graduation came and went, I'd have no idea how to fill the countless hours previously occupied by classes and homework.  It was a great plan.  I couldn't wait to enjoy these few leisurely weeks before my first graduate school residency.

Except that I'd forgotten a few things.  Like Christmas, and laundry, and cooking, and errands, and cleaning, and organizing my life in preparation for residency.  When Dave turned up sick on Tuesday, barely breathing through the congestion that had suddenly filled his head and chest, and Emily developed a fever of 102 degrees by 2:00 p.m. on the same day, my visions of curling up by the fire with a mug of steaming coffee and a great book began to fade.  I suddenly remembered all of the hard work that had filled up the days of the last two and a half years: Dave's days.  While working full-time and becoming my biggest cheerleader, he'd also taken on the role of chief cook and bottle washer (among many other things) here at home.  Although I did what I could, he made it easy.  He cooked, he cleaned, he did the laundry and ran kids from one practice or meeting to another.  He took care of paying bills and washing dishes.  Taking out the trash and shoveling the driveway.  In short, he did it all, even dog tired after long days at work.  He is my hero.

As I sit here, the snow is falling outside at such a rate that I wonder if we might be waist deep in the white stuff by morning, and I'm glad.  There's laundry to do, freelance jobs to apply for, sick loved ones to take care of, presents to be wrapped.  My days will be full, and I will be grateful, because for these last couple of years I've lived in a beautiful bubble created by a man that is everything to me.  A man that has always been, and will always be in my corner - the loudest of my cheering section, the most devoted to my dreams, the most loving of them all.  My days will be full, but I hope that at last Dave will get at least a little bit of the break that he deserves.  He's earned it.