Horses v. Sheep

I was looking at some pictures on Confessions of a Pioneer Woman's website over the weekend. There were pictures of the ranch she lives on and pictures of her kids. But the ones I liked the best were the pictures of her husband.

Wait a minute - I think that statement needs some clarification.

I liked the pictures she posted of her husband because it showed him working the ranch, being with his kids - showing all the things that she loves about him.

Her comments under these pictures were very real. It was obvious that she knows her husband well and loves him immensely.

It made me think of Brian and the things I love about him. Unlike Confession's husband, Brian doesn't ride horses or lasso cattle - but he does tend sheep.

If I had a camera with me on Sundays, this is a picture I would take.

- The way he rubs his eyes and forehead while his head is bowed praying before he gets up to preach. It's a pained look and one that used to worry me immensely. It used to worry me because I thought he was having chest pain or something. I finally asked him one Sunday what in the world was wrong. He just looked at me and said, "I'm praying."

I've seen that pained look before - on different people. I've seen it on my dad as he looked over cattle grazing on a dry pasture. I've seen that look on the face of doctors as they flip through the chart of a cancer patient while the anxious patient and spouse wait to hear the prognosis. I've seen that look reflected back at me from a monitor screen as I watched a fetal heart rate decel too deep and too long too many times.

There's something about the gravity of being responsible for lives - whether patients, cattle, or sheep - that weighs heavy at times.

The responsibility of tending sheep (and eating pizza after 9pm when you are post-40) has been known to effect his sleep.

Brian e-mailed me this this morning -

I had very disturbing dreams this morning.

The house was flooding, and we had water damage everywhere.
The wood on the house was rotting before my eyes.

Then we had to carry heavy stuff up a rotten, rickety deck,
and I was having to reassure you.

Then the neighbor came and was stealing things out of his foreclosed house and putting these things on our crumbling deck.

About this time, I was slammed into the side of a building by a
river boat (I don't know where it came from) and the tornado
that had hurled it against me drug me and the boat 15 miles the rescue people said.

After falling out of the tornado's grip I had lain unconscious for
some time and had internal injuries.

After paramedics had triaged me, you found me and were taking me home.

Then I woke up.

Maybe riding horses and lassoing cattle would be easier than tending sheep?