“I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need … “
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the moving trucks. I admit, sweetheart, some of the reasons I love you don’t lend themselves well to poetry. Definitely not the stuff of greeting card sentiments and romance novels — and thank heaven for that. The chapters of our love story have been punctuated by cardboard boxes, moving trucks, trips to the airport, long distance phone calls, and temporary housing. Our life together has always been less about expensive gifts and more about priceless memories made by accident. Maybe that’s why the reasons I love you are less about gourmet meals in exclusive restaurants and more about understocked commissaries in remote locations.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, the conventional day for making such declarations, here are the unconventional reasons I love you:
I love you, because you are not always with me. You’re dedicated to a calling that has often taken you away from all you love most, including me. Those outside the military may label the demands of our life as a Sacrifice, an abstract concept with a capital S. But I know the tangible cost, the hours and minutes you can never get back: sweet days with our growing children, celebrations experienced secondhand by phone and photographs. In the line of duty, you set aside your own safety. You’ve also regularly given up the small comforts of home: hot showers, morning coffee in your own kitchen, and Sunday afternoon football. These are some of the big and small things you give up for the larger purpose of service to your country, and I love you for that.
I love you, because you never know where you’re going. You rarely get lost, being one of those fortunate few who can navigate nearly anywhere without benefit of GPS. But in the military journey of our lives, our next destination has often been uncertain. That uncertainty made us stronger. If we knew about difficult assignments before we got there, we’d worry uselessly. We might try to avoid the difficult experiences that made us grow. If we knew all about our favorite duty station ahead of time, we might have wished away precious time, as if we could get there faster. Not knowing what’s next means learning to enjoy what’s now. You may not know where you’re going, but you always know where you are. That’s all anyone really knows, and I love you for that.
I love you for what you never say. You do say you love and appreciate me. I never get tired of that, but I also love you for what you don’t say. You never say, “My job is important,” even though it is. You’ve never asked, “Will you take care of things while I’m gone?” or “Will you be here when I get back?” Those are unnecessary questions, because your trust in me is absolute, and I love you for that.
I love you because you’ll never be rich. We’ve rarely wondered where our next meal would come from. We can usually count on the next paycheck arriving on time, but military life is never about the money. You could have been successful at many more lucrative careers if you had chosen another kind of life. But you didn’t, and I love you for that. You saw a need, and you chose to spend your life meeting it. It has taken plenty of scrimping, saving, training, and preparation to do what you do. Along the way you had opportunities to take easier detours for a bigger payoff. You passed them by, gaining treasures more important and lasting.
I love you for all those reasons and more: not for where we go, what you say, or what you earn, but for who you are. Most of all, I love you for that.
Terri Barnes is a writer, book editor, and book lover. She is the author of Spouse Calls: Messages from a Military Life. Portions of this essay first appeared in Spouse Calls her column in Stars and Stripes.