Daisies

For all the years Michael and I have been married, he has always brought me flowers. Beautiful bouquets of roses in the most delicate hues of pink, red roses for Valentine's Day, sometimes white roses ,just because. He is very considerate this way. When we were first married, and still in graduate school, living in a small one bedroom apartment in Austin, he would bring me daisies he 'd pick on the side of the road. I absolutely loved that. We were on a tight budget, but his heart never failed to find charming ways to surprise me. Just the other day, he came home once more with a bouquet of daisies he'd picked by the side of the road on his way home. I am looking at them now, sitting cheerfully in their pretty blue vase. And I think back on the very first time Michael brought me daisies, and the sweet smile and kindness in his clear blue eyes. For a strong, stoic man like my husband to be tender enough to bring me daisies still after 26 years of marriage, it truly is a wonderful feeling. A dear friend of mine still brings a chuckle to my smile whenever I recall a conversation I had with him 27 years ago before I met Michael and before he met his now wife. We were talking, both of us hypothetically, about what it would be like to be in a long term relationship like marriage. My friend thought for a minute, then said very seriously, but it sent me in a roarous laughter: "Nose to nose with the same person ..."  I always remembered that. Something about the way he said it, he seemed quite concerned. It is a challenge to keep a long term relationship happy, and there are certainly times when the nose to nose has proven and is proving to be quite real in its concerns. But I see those daisies on my writing table, and my heart just melts. Marriage is not for those with queasy stomachs, that is for sure, but love and the rewards over time to be a family and hang in there on good days and bad days make up for the times that our other half drives us temporarily around the bend.