Dear Husband by Rushana Samsodien

Our days are numbered.

They won’t be asking “left foot? right foot?”. Bathtime won’t seem like forever, and clean towels will soon be in abundance.

Sleepless nights will be far and few. The shuffling sounds from their little beds in the night, hoping it was just our imagination "Ssshh, did you hear that - are they waking up?" I ask as I close my eyes tightly thinking this is it.  And then that is it, small pitter patters to our bed hearing their sigh of relief as they curl up next to us. Imagine, this will soon turn to closed doors down the passage and we'll hear silent footsteps to the fridge. 

A cup of tea together won’t be in haste but more like waiting for our teenage boys to get home from a night out. We will order in, chocolate wrapper noises will still make us nervous, and we will eat the entire slab in the open. 

Husband, our bank accounts will be blurry but merciful at the same time. For me, it’s a reflection of your hopes, and those hopes and dreams are our reality. We live it with you every day. We are so grateful to you.

The drives won’t seem so loud that we stop mid-sentence and shake our heads because of the chaos, “we’ll catch up later”, I say. Instead, we will drive alone and act awkwardly in public places. We will probably end up at the same restaurant we always went to for a quick bite after dropping them off at my mom's place. 

Billboards with family cruises will find me quickly opening up Google to explore this thought, which will eventually be a suitcase or three and we’ll be off within two minutes. There’ll be no car seat to adjust or bottles to pack. 

Husband, we are almost there. Where we can laugh with them about the times, we pretended there was a power outage and you'd say, "Oh look at that, the TV's not working it must be the power" just so that they would sleep. Or when they insisted, they were allergic to vegetables, and I ended up making the same food two nights in a row.

Remember the time when we were so tired I cried? Back-to-back visits to the hospital seemed like ordinary trips to the supermarket. But the best memory for me will be watching movies with subtitles or messaging you from the kitchen for some random thing because this is how we communicate most days.

What I’m saying is that we’ll tackle this thing called life together because I love swirling in the chaos with you. At this very moment, you’re waiting for me to put the little N one down so we can have that cup of tea together.

I’ve already messaged you to say I’m on my way.