@SimplyTracie

I open my heart to my wife at least once every single day - and generally many more times.

She obviously could not miss the reading. We both are bibliophiles of the highest order. We got rid of our TV about five or six years ago; or I should say, we got rid of any access to TV programming - no dish or internet service, and where we live on a 2 1/2 mile, dirt/mud - depending on the season - road, with our nearest neighbor 1 1/2 miles away, and 35 miles from the nearest small town, no one will ever run any cable.

We did so because there was nothing on TV but garbage - "Reality" shows with absolutely no connection to anything real, and even the "History Channel" has what I call "Rednecks in Louisiana Swamps" (and I grew up in the South, but we now live in the northern top of Michigan) and auctions in self-storage units. What has that to do with history - and I have a BA in history from Kentucky. We did keep the TV set itself so we could rent films to watch.

So, we decided to spend our time reading rather than simply passively watching - expanding our magazine subscriptions from ten to around 40 (including science, psychology, archaeology, history, politics, religion, free-thought, etc.)

We also are longtime book readers - both beginning that enjoyment early in our childhoods, and always give each other books as presents. She gave me one of Bill McKibben's earliest works for my birthday in June, and his latest, "Falter" for Christmas.

As I said, the reading is impossible to miss.

And, I consider it my my highest calling in life to let her know always - through thought, words, and actions - just how much I value, love, and adore her. She gives joy and meaning and excitement and ... ad infinitum to my life.

I would not be me if she were not she; and, thankfully, she shows me that she feels the same in many ways as well - not least of which is by being my loving Dominant partner, as you might have noticed if you have read some of the postings that I have made on that subject over the past 2 1/2 years since joining Similar Worlds.

She had a large brain aneurism on the "Circle of Willis" diagnosed in October of 2016. After getting opinions from several medical facilities, including the Mayo Clinic, it was determined that it was too large to be coiled, so she had brain surgery - which included cutting out a large portion of her skull over her left eye so as to clip the aneurysm - at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit on January 24, 2017.

During the operation, the aneurysm burst, which released a large quantity of blood into her cranium, which has no extra room - resulting in a 9 mm (HUGE) shift in her breaking innumerable neurons.

Then on May 31, five months later, I came out of the bathroom, having taken a shower in preparation for work the next day - she having had to give up her life as a nurse for almost 4O years in medicine (including a BA and MA in Nursing, and an MA in Public Health and Epidemiology - specializing in AIDS and working in London in the British Health Service in the mid-80's for a year and a half with AIDS patients when even doctors were afraid to work with those patients since no one knew how it was spread) because she had major difficulties in remembering, which is a career ender for a nurse - to find her slumped over the dining room table, mumbling incoherently and shaking. Before I could get to her, she fell on the floor, and started thrashing about.

We had long since given up our land line, and we get somewhat, given our location, spotty cell service. So I had to go outside and run a couple hundred yards down the road to even get cell service. A first responder from a couple of miles away arrived first, and then the EMT team. They worked on her on our kitchen floor to stabilize her for about half an hour before being able to transport her.

When they left, I told the last EMT out the door that I knew they probably weren't supposed to say anything but I asked him for his best opinion, and he said that he thought it was "really, really bad" and that "she probably would not survive!".

I was destroyed and wondered whether life was worth continuing, but I knew that I would have to, if for no other reason than to care for our two dogs.

She had a major stroke, but amazingly, and almost unbelievably, she did survive, and was released from the hospital and I drove her home a mere three days later.

She has always been strong and adventurous and self-reliant, and, in addition to having lived in London for a year and a half, had spent months on two separate occasions trekking throughout Europe alone - including (and the spelling is going to be atrocious here) in Sarajevo and Lubianka when they were dangerous places to be. All of this was before we were married in 1998,

She had also gone to Cornwall on several locations to do genealogy as her grandfather was born there, and, when the tin mines there closed, he moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to work in the copper mines in the 1890's.

After the seizure and major stroke on that horrible night, she lost her confidence and became withdrawn and somewhat fearful. She also lost her confidence. She struggled to remember words, and was simply destroyed when someone would interrupt and supply the word that she was struggling to remember.

Then, two years ago, we flew to London, where we stayed for a week, and then to Cornwall for another week, after which I flew home, leaving her there alone for another four and a half weeks so that she, in her words, could get her MOJO back as she explored Wales and Scotland by herself, staying in hostels rather than hotels.

I was scared to death, but I knew that this was something that she truly wanted and needed,

And, hours after I flew out of Heathrow alone on February 25, 2018, the largest snowstorm in 50 years, "The Beast From the East" hit Great Britain, shutting down the trains, planes, and many roads.

That storm forced her to cope, and she did - traveling to Inverness, Cardiff, and many other cities by herself. It gave her back much of her confidence. I was never so happy for a storm in my life.

For the past couple of years, she has taken an approximately four week trip by herself to stay strong and confident, while I support her efforts by staying home and watching our dogs and keeping the home fires burning and the house clean and livable and paying the bills.

Last year, she went to Seattle and Vancouver, while this year she is a week and a half into another trip to Cornwall, which she calls "The Land of My People", and London, her "Spiritual Home."

She spent the first several days in Penzance - and, interestingly enough, considering the Gilbert and Sullivan opera "The Pirates of Penzance", in her genealogical research, she had found that two of her ancestors har been hung as pirates.

By the way, through on site and online research, she has now tracked her heritage and family back to the mid-1450's.

Sunday, she went to Quaker meeting in Penzance before taking the bus to Bodmin. I am a Quaker, while she is an atheist. She supports my belief by going to Quaker meetings whenever we are in a city on a Sunday that has a meeting. Our closest meeting is about 100 miles south of here so we only attend very occasionally, but we have gone to about 35 meetings throughout the US and Canada, and at Monteverdi in Costa Rica over our 21 1/2 years of blissful partnership. And, while living in Ann Arbor for two years - 2015 to 2017, we joined the Quaker meeting there.

I, in turn, go to Free Thought and Humanist meetings with her to support her beliefs.

Then, she spent several days in the Bodmin Moor, staying at THE Jamaica Inn - popularized by Daphne DuMaurier in her book of the same name, and filmed by Hitchcock - which was a home base and a den of pirates, or wreckers, centuries ago. She even requested a haunted room.

She hiked alone throughout the somewhat pathless, quicksand laden Bodmin Moor with a walking stick for a couple days, exploring the quoits and cairns therein.

Then, today, she returned to Penzance, from which she is going to explore St. Ives (where we stayed in 2018), the Eden Project, Land's End, and the Isles of Scilly, before traveling to London for a couple of weeks - where a friend from Paris is going to join her for six days, before returning home to me.

The point of this travelogue is to show the depth of my love and devotion to my wife. Though I miss her near unto death, I am very proud of myself for giving her this much needed time of discovery and inspiration and empowerment by herself, as she continues to grow stronger and more confident every day.

She does still struggle for words, but I give her the time and space to find them on her own., and in her own time.

And, I write long missives to her - probably as long this - a couple of times a day, expressing my undying love for her. I tell her that I know that it might come off as diarrhea of the keyboard at times, but is hard as hell to shut off the fire hose as my feelings and love for her come flooding out.

She is my wife, but even more she is my LIFE. My life was pale and insipid before I met her; now it is full of joy always.

I hope this answers your question as to whether I tell my wife the same things as I wrote earlier in answer to your question. I have, and I do, and I will as long as life gives me a tongue to speak.

Peace and love to you,

Quakertrucker