A Love Letter To Conor Egan

To celebrate Valentine's Day, we asked Patch readers to write a love letter to that special someone and let us deliver it. This is Heather Egan's love letter to her husband, Conor Egan:

I was 16 when I first saw him. He was playing guitar at a high school party. He had the kindest eyes I had ever seen. Big blue-green ocean-like eyes. We played a game of truth-or-dare Jenga, and his block dared him to kiss the person to his left. I was that person. Ever the gentleman, he grasped my hand and kissed it. I was done for.

I grew up poor, he did not. I was fierce and loud and passionate, he was calm and cool and quiet. I have always found such solace in his quietness. He was measured and mathematical. I was whimsical and fiesty.

At 18 we went to college. There were friends made, and parties, drinking and discovery. But still nothing could compare to the bond we shared, and it outlasted the foolishness and folly of early youth.

At 23 we were living together in our first apartment. I am the happiest I have ever felt. Coming home to him is the best part of my day. It is Christmas and he is nervous and sweating. I ask him what’s wrong and he pulls me into the living room gets down on one knee and takes out a ring. It doesn’t fit my finger but I could care less. I barely looked at it. Yes we will marry, he will be my family. I am overwhelmed with joy and overcome with gratitude that this boy with kindest heart and brightest ocean-like eyes will be my husband.

We are 25. I stare into his eyes in a brightly lit hospital room. He is holding my hand and there is a police officer there. There has been a car accident. My mother is dead. I feel unsteady and overwhelmed, but as it always has, his calmness anchors me. It will be okay somehow. I know this because I stare down at my hand. It is holding his. He reminds me of my strength. I remember. Like a gentle current, his love and support forces me onward.

We are 28. He took a chance on a job opportunity and it didn't work out. For the first time in our lives he is unsteady, unsure, deflated. I hold his hand. I remind him that to me he is the most intelligent, hardest working, most impressive person in the whole wide world. I remind him of his strength. He remembers.

We are 32. After a difficult pregnancy that required much medical attention and visits to the hospital, I am about to give birth to our son. I have preeclampsia. The labor is hard and long. After 29 hours there will have to be a C-section. I am scared — the most scared I have ever been. He is too, but he does not show it. He is assured. He is stoic and calm. He reminds of my strength and again I remember. He holds my hand as we hear our son screech and scream into the world. Our beautiful baby boy looks up at me with his father’s big, kind, sweetheart eyes. I am once again overcome. This living, breathing embodiment of the love we have shared for so many years is here. I am grateful. So eternally grateful.

We are 34. Our son is 16 months old. He toddles around the room, laughing and babbling, playing with our dogs stopping every few minutes to come and cuddle with us as we sit on the couch. He is heaven. As he lays on my husband's chest smiling and giggling my husband looks at me. Those big ocean-like eyes that have held my gaze for so many years, through girlhood, into womanhood and now into parenthood meet mine. He smiles. I am once again overcome with the feeling of absolute peace and contentment. I am home. Home in his gaze, home in his arms and now home with our beautiful baby boy.

This is the transformative power of true love. Life ebbs and flows, hardship and triumph come and go, bodies age and sag, change is constant. But real love sustains you. It dulls the ache of real pain, accentuates the gift of achievement, quiets your fears about the future. It is a constant and everlasting reminder of all that is good, and vital and truly mesmerizing about being a human being. And it brings peace. Not all the time, not even every day, but there underneath the pressures of daily life, the stress of bills, and sickness, family and jobs, when they hold your hand you are reminded that however deep down it feels, it is still there.

In them, you are home. Conor, thank you. A thousand years of gratitude falls short of enough. Thank you for these past 18 years and for the happiest baby boy with the kindest, most sparkly eyes. I cherish you.

—Heather Egan

See all Patch love letters here.