True Story

On Valentine's Day, my husband was out of town. I decided to surprise him by writing a Facebook note on 25 things I love about him. I worked on it for the whole morning. I was on #23 when Liam came over and pushed a key, I have no idea what it was, and my note was gone. Poof! Gone. Irretrievable. It had been clever, tender, funny, and absolutely impossible to reproduce. Sad, huh? I have now decided to dedicate an entire post to telling one story that I think was #17. It's too good to be missed.

One of the things I love about my husband is that he's brave.

He's always thinking of contingencies- what to do if a car swerves in front of us in our lane, what to do if this or that bad thing happens.

One day he was driving to work and took a turn he'd never taken before. Just as he realized his mistake, he saw a pregnant woman hurrying across the busy street pulling a toddler along behind her. As he approached, he saw another car coming, and it was obvious to Lewis that the other driver couldn't see her because of the glare. Without thinking, he sped up and stopped his car between the woman and the other car. The driver screeched to a stop, barely missing Lewis' demo car and was furious with him for being in his way. He never saw the woman and child he almost hit.

Brave and heroic? That's just the beginning.

A few years ago Lewis was in school full-time and in order to see each other, we had to sneak late-night dates to fast food joints. It was a hot summer night when we decided to hit Carl's Jr. As we pulled up, I was jabbering away, trying to download a whole day's worth of thoughts in a short time. I didn't notice that a car had pulled up the wrong way, parallel to the entrance. Lewis noticed him though, he saw him pull up farther until the driver could see the counter and who was working. He told me later that the hair rose on his neck. He'd parked by this time, as had the suspicious car. He'd just decided that we should just bag it and go, because of the bad feeling he had about the situation, but I was already almost to the restaurant door. A short skinny Mexican kid got out of the car beside us. He was wearing a big, puffy satin coat, with one arm tucked in the front zipper concealing something. I noticed this, and thought it was odd, but what was odder was what my husband did. He held the door open for the guy, and looking down at him with a smile, clapped his hand on his shoulder, greeting him in a really friendly way. The guy looked way, way up at Lewis and smiled nervously. I assumed that Lewis must have known him from school. The kid walked up to the counter and just stared at the lone teenage girls working the late shift, all the time holding his hand inside his coat. None of the girls working seemed to recognize him. He never even glanced at the menu. My husband walked right up and stood behind him, right in his space. He looked from the girls, to Lewis, then back again. Before long, he walked out without a word.

All this time, I was oblivious. I was thinking about what flavor of milkshake I wanted. I didn't know that Lewis was calculating what he would do if the guy whipped out a gun. Depending on the caliber, he had it all planned out and was ready.

Now is he a handy guy to have around, or what?