Four Years Ago Today

Dear Toby,

Four years ago today, you were a lonely bachelor living a lonely bachelor’s life. Your life was boringly filled with predictability and your days were all the same. Every morning you’d awake at the same time and never was your sleep interrupted before your alarm went off. You’d dress for work, read your Bible, check the news, eat breakfast and put your shoes on before you left. Your shoes always stayed where you last took them off – you never had to dig in a toy box for them, four years ago today.

Your days were filled with hammers, compressors and shingles. A packed lunch was always tucked neatly in your lunch box. Your cell phone rang only with business calls. You were never asked to pick up diapers on your way home from work, four years ago today.

You’d come home from work to your mother’s good cooking. A stack of bills would lay on your desk waiting for you to open while you waited for supper. You’d peruse the mail, file away business contracts, mentally estimate how long book work would take you that night and you were never off on your timing because interruptions never invaded your plans. You would then head to the table for supper and sit down at your own leisure. You never worried about interruptions, four years ago today.

You’d eat your own food and feed only one mouth at each meal. You never had to look out for another’s dish of food. You never had to tie a bib on someone and you never had to make sure somebody else finished their food. You never told someone to stop throwing their food on the floor. And when you were full, you were done at the table, four years ago today.

Your evening would be spent at the computer and no one really seemed to notice. You would work on book work until your work was done and then you’d tidy your desk, grab a good book and head to the bathroom. No one ever cared how long you spent reading and they never complained that you read a book more than you talked to them. You then showered and went to bed with nothing else demanding your time, four years ago today.

You’d lie in bed reading and listening to the radio until you were ready to go to sleep. You never had to get up and help with a sick child nor did you have to tell a noisy child to quiet down and go to sleep. You slept all night long, four years ago today.

Four years ago today, you laid in bed with a itchy back with no one there to scratch it for you.

Four years ago today, your books would always eventually end and the light would shut off followed without a friendly “good night."

Four years ago today, no one intruded on your sleep by tossing and turning in the same bed.

Four years ago today, you never had to worry about someone turning the fan on just when you were about to drift off to sleep.

Four years ago today, when you got up to go to the bathroom during the night, you never checked on any little people one last time, just to make sure they were still breathing.

Four years ago today, at night, your blankets stayed just as you put them and no one ever crowded your pillow.

Four years ago today, when your alarm went off and you sat up in bed, no one ever kissed you good morning. Your itchy back was never scratched as you contemplated getting dressed or laying down for one last rest. And you never kissed a girl goodbye before you left for work.

Four years ago today, you were not a husband. You also were not a father. Your life surged with consistency and predictability. You did the same thing, every day and every night. Interruption was a word you had seen once in the dictionary and you wondered why they would come up with such a definition. You never changed. Life never changed. Everything was the same all the time, four years ago today.

I hope you don’t mind how much your life has changed from four years ago today. I know I’m sure glad it changed.

Love you Always, your wife Courtney