u/Mifiy

Age: We survived our twenties together. We grew older together. That's what I'm interested in.

Height: Doesn't matter. To this day, she's still somehow able to see things I'm standing right in front of and can't find.

Education: Smart enough to challenge me when I'm wrong.

Income: Optional. Financial literacy is a must though.

Looks: She's beautiful. Still the woman I fell in love with. Looking at her feels like home.

Cooking: Sometimes she cooks. Sometimes the cook cooks. Sometimes no one does. Everyone survives.

Contribution to Marriage: Help carry the weight of life when it gets heavy. Allow me to do the same for her.

Children: Quantity not important. Ability to keep them alive, educated and reasonably decent is highly valued.

Social Media: Couldn't care less. If she's posting photos of our holidays, it means we're having holidays.

Arguments: Will annoy me. I return the favor. Neither of us has left yet.

Household Contribution: Neither person notices half the things the other partner does. You only notice when they're gone for a few days.

Romance: Less grand gestures. A little bit here, a little bit there.

Friends: Please have them. Married people who expect their spouse to be their entire social life eventually become exhausting.

Superpower: Ability to hear a strange noise in the house and determine whether it's worth worrying about. It always is apparently.

And while I was paying the bill, I was taken back to the last time I was in that hospital.

It was 2011. I had always wanted daughters, and my firstborn decided to come a month premature. She wasn’t doing well, and for two weeks she stayed in the children’s ICU while we lived between hope, fear and prayers. It was also the first time I donated blood. We share the same blood group.

When she was finally discharged, they told me k accounts department main jaa ke hisaab kar lain. Agar bill zyada jama hua hua to refund mil jayega. So, the next week, I went back.

Instead of a refund, they told me I owed around 13,000 rupees. That amount felt impossible at the time. I remember standing there processing the number, then making an excuse k ATM say aata hoon and just getting on my bike and leaving the hospital.

All of that came rushing back to me while my card was being charged. I told my daughter the story. And as I looked at my healthy, grown daughter beside me, aankhain bhar gayen meri. That frightened 25 year old father in 2011 has come a long way since alhamdulliah.

She rested her head on my shoulder upon seeing my eyes fill and everything was OK again.

Also, the doc thought I was her elder brother.