Unfullfilled Longings...and Flowers (Excerpt from You're Sick, They're Not)

Sick & Tired Book 2
YOU'RE SICK, THEY'RE NOT: Relationship Help for Chronic Sufferers and Those Who Love Them 
has been released!
The book covers important topics such as:
*How different personality types respond to a medical crisis
*The 5 love languages in regard to illness
*How to avoid friction during holidays and other family events
*What to do about the people who just don't get it

For today, I'm sharing a funny story from the book, a time when I got what I wanted, but through a very unusual route...

Excerpt from YOU'RE SICK, THEY'RE NOT  

           So how do we adapt if we really want something and nobody is getting the idea? I don’t know how you personally should deal with that problem, but I dealt with it once by buying myself flowers. You can think that’s weird if you want to.

            Here’s what happened. My husband was leaving the country for several weeks and I was going to be home with a new baby and a chronic condition. As the day to leave came closer, I wondered if Brian would think of something special for us to do, or maybe he would give me a card, or flowers…yes, flowers would be great. Then I could enjoy them while he was gone, and every time I saw them I could think of how he loved me. I built up my little bubble of hope, waiting for him to surprise me with flowers before he left.

            My poor husband, however, was busy trying to translate curriculum into another language, pack, and plan a huge trip. He forgot to think about doing something special for the wife he would be leaving behind. (Being a man, he tends to be rather single-focused—God made him that way so I really shouldn’t get all that mad at him about it.)

Translating...being a dad...not sure why I assumed he'd be thinking about flowers. =)

            I started worrying about this whole flower thing, remembering how I’d done this get-my-hopes-up-for-a-surprise thing, only to be surprised that he hadn’t been secretly planning some great thing after all. I debated within myself. I could subtly mention flowers and hope he got the hint. That usually didn’t work well. I could ask him if he was going to get me flowers and then hope he would. Or I could say nothing, be disappointed, and then for weeks feel down when I saw the table where my flowers were supposed to go.

            Funny how borderline insane the scene looks in writing. It all made perfect sense in my head at the time!

            So…I decided to not wait to be disappointed. I decided to help myself. I went to the store and bought some flowers. Then I brought them home, handed them to my husband and said, “Would you please give me these flowers and say, ‘When you look at these flowers, I want you to remember that I love you’?”

            You should have seen the look on his face. Priceless. It was that grand mixture of uh-oh, am I in trouble, along with, are you slightly crazy? I repeated my statement, holding the flowers out. He said he wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. I think he was expecting me to feel slightly bitter than I had had to do this myself. Funny thing was, I wasn’t. Deciding to go get what I wanted actually was quite liberating, much more fun than sitting around waiting to be forgotten.

            Finally, he took the flowers and said the little phrase, with much chagrin. I had to laugh.  

            Those weeks when he was gone, instead of sitting around upset that he hadn’t thought to get me flowers before he left (and how was he to know that’s what I wanted most anyway?), I had beautiful flowers to look at. And when I looked at them, I actually did think of how he loved me, and I smiled remembering the sheepish grin on his face as he said the little phrase I’d given him.

            I myself had turned the whole situation around by deciding to stop waiting for someone else to be responsible for making me happy. Maybe you can find a way to do that today, too.

Find You're Sick, They're Not at Amazon.com!