One night, I was on my way to Patty's apartment in college and I was listening to a radio show. This sweet old lady called in to request a song for her husband who had recently passed. The radio host asked the lady to explain a little bit about her relationship with her husband. As the lady choked back tears, she said her favorite memory of her husband was that when he would send her flowers for her birthday, an anniversary, or just because, he would sign the card with a period. Nothing more, just a single dot. When the radio host asked what the single period meant, she said it meant "I love you period." There are no ifs, ands, or buts about our love for each other." Patty and I aren't really ones for all the mushy gushies in the world. We don't actually call each other by pet names, or show tons of PDA. Most all of our affections are between the two of us, and that's how we like it. But this night, after hearing that story, I had to tell Patty about it and how it moved me to tears. Not because of how sweet it is, but because it's exactly how we feel about our love. We know there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. We don't need to explain to anyone how we feel about one another. We just know and trust that it's as simple as love should be. I will say, it felt like waiting forever for Patty to ask me to marry him. I used to tease him that we would be grumpy old people (yes, both of us :) ) sitting in our rocking chairs on the front porch before he would ever ask me to marry him. And now, it's funny looking back on that thought. It clearly didn't matter when Patty was going to ask me. I was obviously planning to be there waiting even when we're old and gray. Well, now it's all real, and I can't wait to be sitting on our front porch, grumpy, old, gray, and rocking in our rocking chairs saying, "I love you period, 'Till Kingdom Come."