I showed up at my husband’s fire station with balloons, cake, and a plan to embarrass him on his birthday. Then I saw his crew’s faces, and no one would meet my eyes.
My name is Amanda, and my husband Tyler has been a firefighter for nine years, working the kind of schedule where birthdays sometimes get celebrated a day late or squeezed in between shifts.
When we first got married, I thought I understood what that meant.
I didn’t.
Being married to a firefighter meant learning that dinner plans were suggestions.
It meant keeping my phone charged at all times.
It meant watching Tyler leave the house before sunrise and knowing that whatever happened during the next 24 hours was completely outside my control.
Over time, we found ways to make it work.
We moved anniversaries around.
We celebrated holidays early.
I learned not to take it personally when Tyler came home too exhausted to talk.
He learned that if he missed something important, he needed to make up for it with more than a tired apology.
