Did you hear the one about the husband who handled everything perfectly?

No, really.

Last week, you know, the night of the horror scene, he handled it perfectly.

I mean, perfectly for me.

When we were still trying to find the cats, he firmly ordered me around, forcing me to get out of my hysterics and get into action.

After everything was discovered, he took care of all of the... stuff.

You know:
    - burying FireKitty
    - cleaning up the blood
    - burning things that had blood on them
    - throwing away FireKitty's collar & bed, and random other items I asked him to because they reminded me of her

He watched me be hysterical, helped me up off the ground, gave me light hugs, but didn't force me to be all cuddly with him. Which is good.

He let me take a shower. A long, hot shower and when I came out he had swept and mopped all the floors in the house, and done quite a bit of tidying up.

I think, in his world, where he had to fix it, but he couldn't fix it, so he had to do something, so... he cleaned. Not sure why he cleaned, but I suspect it had something to do with making sure I didn't accidentally come across any random miniscule drops of blood anywhere else in the house, even if we didn't know they were there.

And when my mom called me back with perfect timing about 10 minutes after I got out of the shower (I had called her on the drive home, before we knew anything had happened), and we talked, and it was so good.
And I found out later that he called her while I was in the shower, and told her what happened, and that she needed to call me back, and gave her a timeframe.

And he didn't say a word about the fact that I used up all the hot water.

Or that I didn't do a darn thing the rest of the night, but sit on the couch in my flannel PJs, staring off into space.

And he didn't say a word when I turned on Netflix, and pulled up Gray's Anatomy Season 3, and started watching it, to distract myself.

And he didn't insist that I come to bed. He let me stay up, not even mentioning the fact that it was already really late and I was supposed to be at work early the next morning.

And two days later, when we had our next trainer appointment, he didn't even ask if I were going.
Because somehow he knows, that there's a tiny part of my mind that thinks "First time back to the trainer since August, and this is what happens. I didn't even want to go. I could've put in some laundry, and sat on the couch watching FireGirl dance to her "shows", and everything would've been fine. Stupid gym".*note* as silly as I know that thought process is, it's there. And even if those thoughts aren't there, it's gonna be hard to remove that association. I still get anxious every time I drive home, let alone trying to go back to the place I was when it happened. You understand?

Yes, he handled it perfectly. For me. He handled me perfectly.

And I remembered. That is why I married him.

Well, one of many reasons. But yes, that is why I married my FireMan. Because he gets me. When it really, really counts - he gets me.