𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞

𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄|𝐃𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈

𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫…

Life is perfect now. 

I have a good man — no, a great man. A husband who knows how to make me laugh when I’m too tired to smile, who holds our daughter like she’s made of stardust, who looks at me like I’m still the girl he fell in love with.

I have a family that surrounds us with the kind of love that doesn’t have to be spoken to be felt.

And I have her. Our little girl.

I couldn’t ask for more — not really. Because everything I once prayed for is here, within reach, wrapped up in quiet moments and tiny hands.

I’m standing by her crib, my fingertips gently brushing the edge as I watch our daughter sleep. The faint glow of the night lamp paints her soft cheeks gold, and I can’t help but smile through the sting in my eyes.

She’s everything.

My miracle.

My reason.

Our little heartbeat wrapped in a pink blanket.

This past year... it’s been a whirlwind of emotions. Exhausting and beautiful, all at once. It’s been filled with her tiny cries in the middle of the night, her unexpected laughter, her first words, her first steps — her everything.

She is my whole world in a pair of sparkling eyes and wobbly first steps.

But above all of it — through every diaper change, every late-night feed, every tired morning — there is him.

My husband. 

I turn slightly, looking back at the bed.

He’s lying on his back, one arm stretched over my empty side of the mattress like he reached out for me in his sleep. His chest rises and falls in a rhythm I know by heart, his face softened by rest. Even in the quiet, I can feel his love stretch across the room.

He’s not just the man I married. He’s the man who held my hand through the fire. The one who stayed up with me when the baby wouldn’t sleep, who laughed with me when I thought I’d fall apart. The one who looked at me — tired, messy, weeping — and still saw the woman he fell in love with.

And I… I can’t imagine a world without him in it.

Without him, I don’t know how I would’ve survived the storm of postpartum nights and endless diaper runs. He’s been my safe place, my laughter on the hard days.

He is my calm after the storm.

He’s my once-in-a-lifetime.

I tiptoe across the room and pause beside the bed.

I watch him now, hair slightly messy, face softer in sleep, and I smile.

God, I love him.

More now than I ever have — not just for the way he loves me, but for the way he fathers our child. Patient, playful, protective. Her hero already. Mine, always.

Sometimes I still wonder how I got this lucky — to be loved this deeply, this fiercely, this completely.

Without him, I can’t imagine what life would look like. Because he’s not just part of my life — he is my life.

And tonight, as we step into another year of his — a new chapter for the man who gave me everything — I can’t wait to remind him just how deeply he’s loved.

So I lower myself onto the edge of the mattress and lean down to kiss him softly — just a brush of my lips against his.

His eyes flutter open slowly, a little dazed but smiling when he sees me.