I was singing Lover Lay Down all evening, thinking about TGB coming home. Missing her like crazy.
I called her. She didn’t answer. She called me back. I Made jokes about chasing her boyfriend out of the hotel.
We talked a bit about her trip, the dogs, our upcoming London trip and whatever other mundane things spouses usually talk about.
Have you gone to the post office and gotten the mail.
Yeah, yesterday. You got lots of packages. *giggle*
You can open them if you want.
I opened the ones I thought might have girly stuff in case there were leaks or whatever.
Is that all there was?
No. You got something in a bag, clothes I assume and an album.
An album?
Yeah, it’s flat and square so I figured you ordered a record.
That’s for you. Open it.
So I did.
*laughing* Why am I looking at Barbara Streisand?
Just turn it to page … 85, I think. 
How did you even find this? She didn’t see the tears welling in my eyes.
I tried to find original prints from the photographer. I couldn’t find them but, I found this.
Suddenly the Chiltern Cookbook I got you seems a little less impressive.
Right?
Yeah.
I am not often at a loss for words but, I was by the end of our phone call.
I’ve had a stream of tears since saying good night to her and the entire time I have been typing this.
Maybe you see photos that remind you of a movie you watched recently. You might even be able to appreciate that a wife got a husband something that means something to him even if the why and what of it are a little lost on you.
Those of you who have been around a long time, or have had the gumption to go back and read old dribbles know my affection for the Lovings came long before the motion picture.
What this gift means to me, what the Lovings themselves have meant to me …
Because they fought the fight, we don’t have to.
I can love my wife openly, unabashedly, publicly because of them. No government agency can tell me my marriage – our love – is invalid, illegal.
I love them for that.
Tonight I got a gift that tells me (again) that my wife gets the things that matter to me.
I also got a gift that tells me (again) that I really need to step my gift giving up.
