It had to be you.

Only you would find me charming while I am milking cows in my pajamas and muck boots.

Only you would hug me when I smell like pigs and cow manure.

Only you would pull me close and kiss me when my hair is plastered to my skull with sweat , woven through with hay and straw and my clothes are covered in stains and clumps you don’t want to guess at.

Only you would rub my feet at the end of a long day with hands you’ve worked to bone.

 

It had to be you.

Only you would buy me a cow just because I think she’s pretty when you know she’s overpriced.

Only you would let me buy animals that will cost more in vet care and time to heal them than they will ever bring, just because my heart cannot stand to leave them and wonder what became of them.  You and you alone understand that knowing obligates me in spirit.

Only you would tolerate me bringing calves into the kitchen by the wood stove and keeping them in dog kennels so they don’t chill.

Only you would go out in the middle of the night with your gun and flashlight because I ‘feel ‘ like something’s not right.

 

It had to be you.

Only you would give up the comfortable life you had in the city to move out to the middle of nowhere with me so I could have the peace I yearned for.

Only you would surrender what you termed ‘success’ for me to have my dreams.

Only you would put up with sinking all of our funds into things you never desired.

 

It had to be you.

Only you would understand what it means to me to be here; to have this little piece of earth and these cows and these llamas and these pigs…to walk with them and chatter with them and watch them bring babies into the world and care for them and occupy my time and my mind with their needs and their antics.

Only you would have watched me on brink of losing it all and decided that no matter what it took, that wasn’t going to happen.

Only you would have invested the time and months and money and sweat and aggravation and efforts of all kinds it took to reclaim this farm after the flooding and the mud and the losses and rebuilt it better than before.  Most men would have breathed relief at having been done with the stress, let me grieve and moved on.  But not you.

It had to be you whom I walked through all of my life’s paths with: the joys, the sorrows, the regrets, the victories, the frustrations, the peaceful moments of quiet contemplation.

It was you.   It’s always been you.    It had to be you.    It will always be you.