Guest Post: Britannia Howe

Someone to Watch Over Me

I have known my best friend for almost 12 years now. Joseph likes to say "I knew at 13 years old I wanted to marry you." Now, I didn't always believe this and I don't know if all boys know what they want at that age, but he did, and he worked hard to get me too! Although we "grew up" together and attended high school together, I wouldn't say we were high school sweethearts. I didn't give him the time of day, but his perseverance and his love for me stole my heart.

I often think of the song "Someone to Watch Over Me" by Gershwin.  This song reminds me of our relationship.  Often times we are away from each other because of the careers we have chosen in the  arts.  I always long to see him and try hard to be the best Britannia I can be so that I can continue to be by his side. "I know I could always be good to one who'll watch over me." "Real Love" (as this blog is titled) calls for us to find someone to watch over.

July 31st will be our 3rd Anniversary, we are still young newlyweds, but it feels like I have known him forever. Every day gets better and better with him. I couldn't ask for a better friend, lover, and
husband.  I believe that we are happy in our relationship at this moment because we do everything together, have the best in mind for each other and because we pull our load side by side.

Everytime I see my husband it puts a smile on my face and everytime he touches me I get butterflys.  After a long day of music, theatre, and work we like to wind down by watching 11:00pm Seinfeld
with a glass of milk, and then make our way to the bedroom... to sleep.

You & Me

A great Dave Matthews Band song

Look out for an upcoming post dedicated to Joseph from Britannia

Guest Post: Katie and Dana

My Sweet Forever Song, 
by Dana as a Christmas gift to his wife, Katie

In the rear view mirror I see you, many years gone by
Standing next to the glowing fire, on that beach in July
But I don’t know just what to do
A passing glance and a smile or two
I calm my fears and I tell myself to walk on up to you

All of the memories living inside my heart
Are like a melody, calling me from afar
Bringing me there to you, into your loving arms
That tune, it still plays on

Cause you are the perfect note,
My sweet forever song
Yes you are

Now we travel the same road, and along the way
We’re making memories to last, far beyond the day
And when I look into your eyes
I hear the lyrics start to rise

You strike the chord inside my soul, and then begin to play
All of the memories living inside my heart
Are like a melody, calling me from afar
Bringing me there to you, into your loving arms

That tune, it will play on
Cause you are the perfect note,
My sweet forever song

Your music still calls me home, into your loving arms
That tune it will play on

Cause you are the perfect note,
My sweet forever song

Cause you are the perfect note,
My sweet forever song

Katie's reaction:

I received from Dana probably the greatest Christmas present I've ever been given. He wrote me a song! He spent hours on this project for me. At first he was even trying to figure out his own tune and everything, but in the end ended up using a tune I had never heard of and putting his own words to it. On Christmas morning I got to watch a video of him singing it to me. I was crying. The words were so sweet and I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. He also made a collage of pictures of us throughout the years and in one of the openings is the lyrics to the song.

He is so good to me and often I feel undeserving. He makes life so special. I used to be pretty proud of my people-discerning skills but experiences and time have humbled me and I can now see that no matter how well you think you know someone, when it comes to eternal marriage, there is an certain amount of luck involved. This makes me feel so incredibly blessed.

After 14 years…

You’re my confidant

You’re my best friend

You laugh even when my joke’s really not funny

You’re my sweetheart

You’re my reward at the end of the day

Thank you for always coming home and being mine.

I love you.

Katie and Dana in 1996 and 2010

 

Adoption

NieNie on Real Love

If you don't follow Nienie on her pretty amazing blog you probably should.
She is a remarkable lady and I've always be impressed with her Mr. Nielson. Let's all be honest, I'm sure she's agree with me, he's pretty hot.

So here is what she wrote of him most recently:

"Tonight, I lay in bed. Awake. Wide awake.
Mr. Nielson lay next to me buzzing softly in a low hum.
In dreamland.
I think he is dreaming of the ranch and his role he will play as host as he
prepares to take my family up for our first Clark Family reunion.
I am thrilled to spend 4 days just with them.

Anyway, about Mr. Nielson.
He is amazing and I couldn't stop touching him as he lay sleeping.
Trying to make his floppy arms wrap around my cold body.
I stared at him, mugged on him, and told him
over and over again how much I loved him.
I told him why he makes me so happy, and how I am sorry for being a nag
(a lot of the time)


Since the accident, my muscles and coordination are not quite the same.
I can't lift the heavy things that I used to before.
I get frustrated easily and rely heavily on him for almost everything!

Tonight we lay together alone.
No one else or thing (computer) taking up our time and attention.
Just us, breathing the same air and touching close.
I am happier right now than anytime this whole day.
I look forward to 9:00 when the children find their way to bed
and Mr. Nielson and I find ours.
Sometimes it happens at midnight, but we always do- and together.

I will snooze off here soon, so I m trying to get in the right position where I can feel safe and happy. And that, is under his right arm and his left arm over my stomach. Perfect."


Nienie's Blog post

A site to see

When I enter sit in the Celestial room of the temple my favorite thing to do is to sit back and watch an old married couple. An old married couple all in white is matched only in cuteness by a toothless baby laughing and drooling and trying to talk.
The baby and the old couple have a lot in common.

Usually the old couple sits down together, close together. They often hold one another's hand. Seeing the way their hands fold together so comfortably I can feel the warmth in my own hand. The soft leather feel of a touch that has touched you and been touched by you  most every day for years and years and years.

They rarely speak to each other. They may not even look at each other. They are telepathic. They sit talking without opening their mouths. They have said it all before, and they know it all by heart.

They have lived their lives together. I do not doubt there were moments, days, perhaps even years when one or both may have wished to be apart. But here they sit, calm and steady now having faced the future until it became the long gone past.

And the best part, as I watch them, is knowing that in their hearts they are still just a couple of kids who muddle through losing their keys, helping their children, and watching Jeopardy just as they did 100 years ago when they got married.

They are still in love. At when you are that age, holding hands in the temple, ain't nothing going to change it.

~Miranda

Vows

The Text of an article on what marriage vows should be for those who find Real Love.

Real Love Marriage Vows

What we all want more than anything else is to feel loved, but not just any kind of love will do. We want to feel loved unconditionally. We want the kind of love we don’t have to earn by pleasing people. We want Real Love. In the absence of sufficient Real Love, we tend to fall in love with—and marry—partners who temporarily make us happy with enough conditional approval, sex, money, and power, and then we expect that they will continue to make us happy for the rest of our lives.

Regardless of the words actually spoken at the wedding ceremony, what we hear our spouses say is this:

“I promise to make you happy—always. I will heal your past wounds and satisfy your present needs and expectations—even when you don’t express them. I will lift you up when you’re discouraged. I will accept and love you no matter what mistakes you make. I give to you all that I have or ever will have. And I will never leave you.”

Neither partner is consciously aware of making this bushel of promises, but each partner still hears them and insists that they be fulfilled. When both partners lack sufficient unconditional love—or Real Love—however, they can’t possibly make one another happy, and then their efforts to do that yield only disappointment and anger, no matter how hard they try.

I have been asked on several occasions what marriage vows would look like if both partners understood the principles of Real Love. I suggest these vows might look something like the following:

I spent a lifetime looking for a kind of happiness that eluded me. Again and again, I was deceived by the temporary satisfaction that came from approval, praise, excitement, power, and safety.

But then I found Real Love—unconditional love. I found people who cared about my happiness without wanting anything from me in return, and gradually I’ve learned to care for others in a similar way.

That love has changed everything for me. I’m not empty and afraid all the time anymore, and I’m no longer a prisoner to my anger.

I’ve discovered the peace and genuine power that naturally flow from loving others without conditions. I’ve learned to feel that way toward many people and to have healthy, rewarding relationships with them. I don’t claim to love perfectly, but I’m getting better at it.

So why, of all these people whom I have learned to love, have I chosen to make a vow of marriage only with you?

Because in addition to the unconditional love I share with many, I want to share with you a higher, unique level of loving. I choose to seek that higher plain with you because I believe you have a desire to participate fully in an honest, healthy relationship and because I believe you are willing to commit to the process of learning how to become an unconditionally loving human being. I believe that I can feel more unconditionally loved, become more unconditionally loving, and feel greater happiness with you than with anyone else I know.

      Seeing that combination of reality and potential in you, with a full heart I commit:

            ·          that I will continue to share with you the truth about who I am—my mistakes, flaws, fears, foolishness, and successes.

      ·    that when I become empty and afraid—and when I then behave badly—I will not quit our relationship. I will stay with you. I will try to admit the selfishness in my feelings and behavior and will then do whatever it takes to find the Real Love I need to participate in a loving relationship with you.

            ·    that when you become empty and afraid—and when you behave badly—I will not leave our relationship. I will stay with you. Instead of protecting myself or getting my own needs met in the moment, I will try to see your need for love and will do whatever it takes to find and share with you the Real Love we need to have a loving relationship.

            ·    to share my body with you, freely, in a way that I will share with no one else.

            ·    to share with you my material resources, completely and without reservation, again in a way that I will share with no one else.

            ·    to share my heart with you in a way that no one else will ever know.

            ·    that I will stay engaged in a relationship with you while I learn to love you, no matter what the temporary difficulties might be.

Vows like these reflect a realistic understanding of what a healthy relationship can become. They also serve as a guide for the development of that relationship.

Greg Baer, M.D.

source

I Only See You

One of my favorite, little known musicians wrote this for his wife, Jen, as far as I know.

Benton Paul is amazing, by the way. You should totally look him up.

Our total love for you is everlasting

This is the transcript of a love letter from President Gerald Ford, and his children, to his wife Betty upon her diagnosis with breast cancer in 1974.

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

Dearest Mom

No written words can adequately express our deep, deep love. We know how great you are and we, the children and Dad, will try to be as strong as you.

Our Faith in you and God will sustain us. Our total love for you is everlasting.

We will be at your side with our love for a wonderful Mom.

xxxx

Jerry
__________________________

The copy  and transcript of this letter available at the link above. It comes from the amazing blog Letters of Note.

We have forever

Darling, I love you...three words that say so much!



The feelings I have in my heart for you, are so hard to put into words, but I will try...It is more than just I love you, so much more than physical love, but wanting your body and your caresses plays a real part in our relationship... It is a regard for you, a tenderness, that makes me want to guard your sleep, care for you when you are sick, or just hold your hand. It is the willingness to get up out of bed in the middle of the night to get you a drink of water, sharing things together-- I've never shared with anyone else EVER, dressing up for you and being proud of who I am for I have worth in your love. It is every kindness I'll ever want to show you and oh so much more that I haven't figured out how to say. But we have forever to discover all of them.

Your loving wife



letter source
photo source

Well Loved for 20 years.

 20th Wedding anniversary:

It is the light in your eyes when you look at me
It is the gentle curve of your mouth when you smile at me
It is the warmth of your hand when you touch me
It is the strength of your arms when you wrap them around me
It is the steady beat of your heart against my ear when you hug me
It is the easy sharing of your thoughts when you chat with me
It is the deep trust that you reserve for me
It is the easy friendship that you share with me
This is the knowing of a heart well loved for 20 years -
you are my light
you are my sun
you are my joy
you are my strength
you are my life
I love you
I always have
I always will

Anonymous

poem source
photo source

Bubbles

We Listened To Ourselves
Rose and I worked at the same printing company...she being one of several deaf employees (she hates the term hearing-impaired!) hired through a special program. I knew she was deaf when I heard her voice while she was conversing with another worker. I had no girlfriend, so I took note of every new female employee! And later I found that Rose had recently split up with a hearing boyfriend. One afternoon we looked over at each other and smiled, and there was that cliched "click" of something.
We had lunch on our first date. Rose reads lips extremely well, and speaks much better than many deaf people I've met subsequently -- but during that lunch, I think I understood a third of what she was saying at best! Eventually I got better at deciphering her, though even thirteen years later I have occasional difficulty. Other people, strangely, often understand her better than I even when meeting her for the first time!
One problem I never anticipated between Rose and me is that she has a great difficulty reading and writing...and my aspirations are to become a well-known writer (currently I am a published and obscure writer). I soon learned that the AVERAGE deaf person has the writing skills of a third grader, and reading skills of a fifth grader. Deaf people don't think in words as much as hearing people do, but in a more abstract way, largely involving "actions" and "occurrences". And in American Sign Language, they skip connective words (one will sign, "I go store" rather than entirely express, "I am going to go to the store now"), so they generally tend to write in that same way.
So how would I feel, writing stories a partner couldn't fully appreciate? What I ended up doing over time was to TELL my wife my stories. She gets something from this, because if it's a scary story she'll shudder, if it's a sad story she'll cry. We've often ended up crying together after one of these story-telling sessions!
I've learned some sign-language but have never been good at languages (two years of Spanish and one of French were entirely wasted on me). I've asked Rose many a time to sign to me EVERY time she speaks to me, so that I might learn more simply through constant exposure, but she has become too used to conversing with hearing people without signing. So now I merely toss in the occasional sign as an "illustration' (or to talk to her in a noisy location, or behind another person's back).
Some of Rose's deaf friends asked her why she wanted to go out with a hearing man (some deaf people refer to hearing people as "hearies"). Men seemed most resentful. I imagine they felt that the ranks of available deaf women were being invaded, the way some white men resent seeing one of "their" women with a black man.
In the beginning, it was an exciting idea to me, having a deaf girlfriend. The movie CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD came out right when we began dating. It was exotic, as dating an Asian or African-American woman would have seemed to me. But the reality of certain difficulties arose later on. I have to "slow down" my speech to Rose, speak more clearly and simply, as I would to a child, despite Rose's adult intelligence. Profound conversations about literature are saved for my brother or certain friends.
Much of our relationship is of an unspoken harmony...despite all the fighting like cats and dogs that has existed from nearly day one -- but I attribute this to our mutual bad tempers as much as to our communication differences. In school, Rose was taught to be tough and bold and independent, so she is not afraid to butt heads, and is much tougher than I am...more willing to deal with the public in the course of errands than this shy hearing person is. I think my withdrawn nature and my feelings of being an "outsider" type might have a lot to do with me being attracted to a deaf person. We can be in our two little bubbles linked together.
There have been many occasions when my family found Rose difficult or awkward or frustrating to deal with, and vice-versa, so there have been numerous embarrassing flare-ups at holidays and family gatherings and the like. And at work, I felt Rose's bosses were insensitive and impatient with her, and there were several angry, messy meetings that I demanded be called to address these problems. But Rose works for another plant now, where she is greatly respected and liked...and the head-butting with my family has seemed to decrease over the years.
When we found out our son Colin was autistic, I thought Rose would be even more devastated than I was. The opposite was true. Again, Rose is tougher -- but I think it has more to do with the fact that she has accepted her own "disability", and it isn't a tragedy to her. My fear had been that she would despair, because in ways her childhood had been very rough, and she might fear for Colin's, too. But she has been strong.
So now our household is doubly challenging, but triply loving. Now it's three little bubbles -- but firmly connected. 

from
http://www.pbs.org/weblab/lovestories/stories/Communication/story32777.shtml 

this is love

Brenna and Brent's engagement photo

to want one man
and nothing more
to crave the company
of the one you adore
this is love

to forget one's self
in order to serve
when one feels unworthy
of the one they deserve
this is love

to ache when he's gone
your happiness withdrawn
you can't carry on
until his eyes are upon
your face

elated when he's near a
a restorative cheer
all that you hold dear
bidding farewell to fear
in his embrace

to be by his side
all that was, now obsolete
you've not been found
together, complete
this is love

~ by Brenna, to her soon to be husband Brent

I love this love story

A place for happy stories

Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's the continued problems of the economy. Maybe it's watching too much Teen Mom, but lately I've felt like a spectator at the worst kind of game. Marriages all around me are crashing down. Marriages that I thought were strong and steady.
I have friends, family, acquaintances, even a few frienemies, who are ending their marriages. Their reasons are their own and I do not presume to judge them for their choices, but I am saddened by the loss of something that was once beautiful and life-giving.
Being witness to the end of so many happy stories, and the short stop and sudden drop of what I had hoped would be my own happy beginning, has left me feeling a little hardhearted. I am concerned for my future, and the future of the institution of marriage. In my head I know that there are, there must be, happily married couples all around me. But nobody is talking about them.

I want some happy stories.
Tell me how you met.
How you made it work today.
How you decided she was the one.
How you make it work every day.
How you almost lost it, but saved it.
Why getting married is the best thing that ever happened to you.

Send me your love letters.
You poems and songs. 
Your Valentine's Day Youtube videos.
All of it!

Heartfelt, silly, thrilling, romantic. I want them all. I will be soliciting and gathering testimonials of marriage from anyone and everyone. Newlyweds and experts.

These are the stories that the world, and I, need to hear. No tragedies here. We've all got enough and to spare of sorrowful tales. I hoping that these stories will bless those that write them as much as those that read them. To share a story email it to itsrealloveblog@gmail.com

Let Real Love Flow