(Originally posted May 3, 2009)

I love my husband. Not to sound all Hallmark card-ish, but I knew from the instant I met him that he was going to be important in my life. I didn't know how important, or that I would end up sharing my life with him and choosing him as the father of my children, but I knew he was special. I've loved him forever, and I will love him forever.

I will admit, though, that there were times that I've not been proud of him. Whether it was showing up with mustard dripped on his shirt to one of my work functions, or blowing his nose at a restaurant table, or any of the hundreds of other things he's done in the course of our years together that have slighted my conventional sensibilities, the man has made me cringe (mostly mentally, but sometimes physically as well) time and time again.

I won't guarantee that I'll never gripe at him again for engaging in some behavior along the lines of those mentioned above, but I will tell you that I've found countless reasons to be proud of him everyday since February 15. I've never witnessed the level of courage and determination that is required for J.J. to complete the simplest tasks. From placing an order at a restaurant to calling to RSVP our daughter for a classmate's birthday party to picking up Eli's 4-H geraniums, all social interactions are difficult for J.J. But he somehow manages to make it happen, often without making the apologies and explaining that he has had a stroke that I would automatically tack on to everything I said. J.J. is not ashamed of who he is or what has happened to him.

As I write this, J.J. is on his way to a birthday party with both of our children, opting to leave me at home since I seem to have strained a muscle in my back while doing yard work yesterday. The birthday boy is one of Leah's classmates, and we don't know his parents well (although he did attend Leah's last birthday party). I started to worry about J.J. taking on this challenge, but soon I realized--he'll make it work. I can have confidence in that.

Before I sign off, a couple more reasons I'm proud of J.J.:

1. We went to BW3's for dinner on Friday night. This is one of the first sit-down meals we've had out since J.J.'s stroke and our first visit to a restaurant that offered the NTN Trivia for quite some time. Although J.J. has discovered that it's difficult for him to focus on the trivia questions and use the Playmaker to record his answers at the same time, when he pushed the box over to me to control and had me enter his answers, he did very, very well. J.J. is still preternatuarally smart.

2. He bowled five games on Friday afternoon while he was waiting for me to leave work, including a game that included four strikes in a row and an additional five spares! I'm in awe, since if I break 100 I'm on fire!

In addition, his speech has really taken a turn for the better in the last day or so. This weekend is really the first time since the stroke that I've been able to forget for a while while interacting with him that there was every anything wrong.

Dare I say that life is approaching normal? Okay, it's not exactly as it was before, but it feels really good.