Note: In today’s world, the morning I’ve written about below may seem of no consequence.  The situation is a “first world” problem, but Iceman’s response was unselfish love.  Love and kindness have eternal consequences, something we all need to give and receive right now.

Thirty years into our marriage and 37 years into our friendship, this is a photo of true love, right here.  

How can that be?  Let me tell you a story.

Iceman loves coffee.  To me, as a non-coffee drinker, his absolute love of coffee seems to border on obsession.  Folgers, Starbucks, ground coffee, K-cups, sink water, cream, sugar are all bad words.  Iceman only buys a couple of different types of coffee, only buys from Black Rifle Coffee Company, and only drinks from his favorite mug.  The cup discussion is for another day.   

He grinds fresh beans a few at a time.   Then he puts an enormous scoop of the freshly ground beans in this little contraption that he inserts into the Keurig.  Then, the reservoir is filled with filtered water, and he runs it through the Keurig cycle twice, once on “large” cup and once on “small” cup.  The result is a full 16 oz. of strong, dark coffee in his mug.   My Dad would have called it “high octane”.  It’s quite a process and he does it first thing in the morning.  Every morning.  I try to stay out of the way.

This morning, I came into the kitchen somewhere between filling the grinder with the beans and plugging it in.  He asked how I was.  I told him I was fine, but I wished I had an old-fashioned metal coat hanger because it was supposed to thunderstorm that afternoon. 

The coffee making came to a halt. He looked at me, confused.  I’m sure visions of fiery lightning bolt experiments were dancing in his head, but my wish was not that exotic.

See, the company I work for installed security gates in the parking lot.  Getting in is easy.  Getting out is not.  To exit the parking lot, one must swipe their employee badge against the scanner.  The only problem is to reach the scanner you clearly need to be in a high clearance vehicle and/ or have 5-foot arms.  Since I possess neither, to leave I must drive my car to the exit, unbuckle the seatbelt, because,  you know, that’s just a habit now when you get in a car, to put on the belt.  Then, I get out of the car, swipe my badge, get back in, buckle back up, drive through the gate.  It’s not fun in the rain.  It’s not even fun in the sun. So, I thought if I had a metal coat hanger, I could unfold it, attach my badge to it, then extend it out the window up to the scanner.  Not pretty, but hey, it’ll get the job done more efficiently than my current method. 

I went back upstairs to get my forgotten mask and when I came back to the kitchen, the coffee items were still on the counter, but the Iceman was gone.  As I went out to the garage, he was standing at his work bench, drill in hand, a leftover piece of ¼ round trim board in his vice.  After the drilling, he held it out to me and asked if this would work.  Low and behold, my badge clips perfectly through the hole, and voila!  I will now have 5-foot arms, more than enough reach.  It would work perfectly!

I stood there in shock and looked at him.  I had just made a passing comment while gathering my stuff to leave.  I didn’t ask, or even expect him to fix my issue right then and there.  And, certainly not before the magical elixir had been made.  But, in the 5 minutes I was gone from the kitchen, he’d gone out, selected the items he needed, and spent those very early morning minutes making my day better. 

He brushed off my thanks, saying it was no big deal, but his unsolicited investment in a simple act of thoughtfulness and kindness touched my heart.   It truly is the thought- and the follow through- that counts. 

I tucked his early morning creation between the passenger seat and the console in my car. Easy access to use at the scanner or to defend myself from a vampire. These days you just never know! 🙂

There are many expressions of love. I’ll take this simple stick over flowers any day. 

Eric blesses me every day. More love than you can shake a stick at. 

Pass it on.

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

–Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV)