Valentine's Day Top Ten

As most of you know, I've always rather boycotted Valentine's Day. Not because I've not loved anyone, naturally, but for several reasons including commercialization of the day and having the country feel like they 'have' to be lovey dovey for that day Or Else. These last few years I've lifted my internal boycott, because I've enjoyed watching Kaylee, who loves hearts, candy, holidays, and all things pink. So in honor of a non-boycotted Valentine's Day, I present a special edition Top Ten List.

Valentine's Day Top Ten Reasons I Love Steve:

1. He is a patient man. You'd have to be to be married to me. ;) He was patient when I was his new employee and didn't really know what I was doing. He was patient when I felt insecurity in areas from flying to relationships. He was patient when we went through so much with our kids and SMA and he wasn't at the top of my priority list. He is patient when I get sucked into something and forget everything else. He is pretty patient being the more "Felix" to my somewhat "Oscar". He is patient if his daughter wakes him up in the middle of the night, and he is patient if his wife steals his covers. In fact, he won't even wake her up to try to get them back. He claims that is more fear, but I don't know about that...

2. Kindness. When we first met, he took the time to sit down with me and go over some real world flying things, and he managed to do it in a way that left me with my dignity intact. He made it easy for me to ask questions without feeling stupid, made it easy for me to learn without feeling threatened or inadequate. When we became friends and started going places and doing things together, I was actually dating someone else, and that someone else and I had an unpleasant conversation which left me upset. Steve took me out, we flew somewhere (I don't even remember where), and when we got back he just sat in the car in the parking lot of the airport by my house and we talked for hours, until even *I* was wiped out and ready to go home (and I'M the night owl). It didn't occur to me until later that he'd done that on purpose to keep me from going home and dwelling on the unpleasantness. It worked. The first time I flew a Cherokee 6, I was with him and we went to a nearby airport. I bounced the landing-in fact I landed about three times in a row. (Third worst landing out of the four really cruddy landings I've ever had.) Naturally there were people there and watching, and I was not only the new kid on the block, I was young, and a girl. The first words Steve said when we walked up to the people there were "Well, that's the worst landing I've done in awhile!" I don't have a great poker face, so apparently nobody was looking at me, or they'd have seen the shock. He more than once gave me a chance to learn and earn people's respect. I had to follow up and learn and DO it, but he opened that door...and I wasn't anybody special to him at that point. He's done that for a LOT of people, because he has a kind heart.

3. Envy-Free. I was the first to ride in the Mustang, and he was not only not upset that it wasn't him, he was thrilled for me. I got to go up in a B-25, I got to fly over the Indy 500, I got to go to California for a week, I got to go to a taping of a TV show in Tennessee, I got to go to the stuff at the Gathering of Mustangs and Legends, and I get to train in the T-6. I've gotten (and get) to do a lot of exciting, special things that for pilots are really once in a lifetime opportunities. He not only doesn't pout that it's not him, he not only lets me be excited about it and is excited for me, he actually hopes things like that come along for me. If I'm honest, I don't know that I could be that way if roles were reversed. I am fairly sure that while I would be happy for him, and proud of him, I'd also be envious. I feel it takes a pretty strong man to not be threatened or jealous when their spouse gets to do things like that in the arena in which they play too.

4. He is very giving. Again, many of the above stories fit into that. He works long hours during the week and the weekend both, and yet when he can he'll still get up with Kaylee on a Saturday morning and let me sleep in. There are trips he could make and opportunities he could take-and he often lets me instead. When I first met him, there was someone he knew whose child was in the hospital with a life-threatening situation, and he gave a *lot* of money to the family in order to help them with the medical bills. Later we would come to appreciate just how bad that can get, but at that time he had no reference. He gives what he can, sometimes more than he can, and that's the way he wants it to be.

5. He trusts. That's a big deal. In our field, I'm about the only woman around most of the time. I know for a fact that there aren't a whole lot of husbands who would be happy, perhaps wouldn't even 'allow', their wives to work alone with other men. But if I had to have a chaperone everywhere I went with another man, I couldn't do this job at all. If he didn't trust my judgment, me, then that would put me into a position I don't even like to consider. He trusts me in an airplane, he trusts me as a parent, he trusts me as a spouse, he trusts me financially, and that trust is probably one of the bedrocks of our relationship.

6. He's persistent, and smart. I like that in a guy. I would call him "stubborn", but that might be a little "pot calling the kettle black"-ish, so I'd best stick with "persistent". ;) When he has a goal, he works at it until he achieves it, and whenever obstacles come up, he sizes them up and then finds a way around them that I usually wouldn't have ever thought of. He knows when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, and how to even take a "fold 'em" and turn it into what he wanted-or better-in the first place. His mind works in a way mine doesn't, and I've learned a lot from him, even though my grammar IS better. ;)

7. It's good to be friends. Oh, stop that noise, it's true. I enjoy hanging out with him. When we were first married, we both worked at the airport office at Camel-Lot, 8-12 hours a day, every day from Monday through Saturday. People would ask us over and over "Oh man, how can you be with him/her 24/7 like that? Don't you guys fight?" Actually, no, not really. In fact, it's kind of nice being able to work together most of the time. These days I'm not at the office all day every day, but I do eat lunch with him (and several others) almost every day, and I enjoy that. We share a lot of interests and we enjoy each other's company.

8. Support. I think he may very well be my biggest fan. He supports me no matter what crazy thing I am doing. If I want to do it, and I'm going to try it, he backs me on it. Sometimes he's even the one pushing me. As a newish instructor, he sent me out to fly with a guy who had his own plane--it was a type of plane I'd never been in, and I was nervous about flying planes I hadn't been in before (for good reason). Then Steve tells me it doesn't have brakes on my side, and that about had me turning around to go home. Now I'm not only unfamiliar with the airplane and the guy flying it, I'll have No Brakes?? Oh, it has a HAND brake that I don't know how to use. Great. I start stuttering on the phone, and he pipes up with "Hey, if I didn't think you could handle it, I wouldn't send you. You can do this." He was right, it was no big deal at all, but he had more faith in me than I did for awhile there. He's still the one saying "You can do this" if I start stuttering about something.

9. Respect. He always has treated me with respect, from the first time I met him. He took me seriously as a person, as a woman, as a pilot. He respects my thoughts, my space, my ideas. He shows respect to his daughter, listening to her, taking the time to just sit and talk, to try to understand, to let her know that she is important to him and that what she has to say, what she thinks and feels, is important to him too. He's setting a foundation for her, and hopefully she will come to expect to be treated with kindness, respect, and trust by any young men who dare to date her. :)

10. Miscellaneous Reasons. All this sounds like I love Steve because of what he does for me, but that's not it. It's not really because he lets me sleep in on Saturdays or because he took the blame for a bad landing for me; it's more because of the kind of person he is, the kind who would do things like that. There's a difference. It's not his actions that I love per se, it's who he is as a person. (Although there may be no living with him after he reads this.) ;) Huh. A lot of the above sound rather familiar to me. Yes, I'd say so: 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Happy Valentine's Day. :)