It’s giving life that counts. Until you’re ready for it, all the rest is just a big fraud. All the crazy haircuts in the world won’t keep it turning. Life isn’t a love in, it’s the dishes and the orthodontist and the shoe repairman and… ground round instead of roast beef. And I’ll tell you something else: it isn’t going to a bed with a man that proves you’re in love with him; it’s getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful everyday world with him that counts. — Yours, Mine, and Ours

Last night, Irish Woman and I showed each other just how much in love we are.  We didn’t go out to a nice restaurant, nor were there gifts exchanged.  We showed our love by getting out of bed at 3 in the morning, going out in 25 degree weather, and getting a sprinkler to work so that our fruit trees wouldn’t get burnt by the frost and freeze.  We had finished our evening by turning on heat lamps and firing up charcoal fires under them at 11 PM.  You never know how much you love a woman until you’re on your knees in frozen grass, feeling around in the dark for a black plastic cap to a sprinkler so that she will have home-grown cherries and peaches this summer.  She put up with my grumbling and growling and worked just as hard as I did because she knows just how important having fresh fruit in the house is to me.*

Love is not Romeo and Juliet.  That was infatuation.  Same goes for Titanic and most of the other ways in which romantic love is portrayed in movies, plays, and TV.  Love is getting up at 2 in the morning and feeding the baby so that your wife can get some rest.  Love is making a hot meal and bringing it to your husband while he’s working outside in an ice storm.  Love is The Gift of the Magi, where both of you sacrifice for the benefit of the other.

If only I’d learned that lesson earlier in life.

*I’m a lace curtain Norwegian.  We have fruit in the house even when nobody is sick.