There are little moments in a relationship when you realize how much you care for someone. Even when it is someone you love and say &uot;I love you&uot; to on a regular basis. In that one moment the world stops revolving. It is a sharp, in-focus moment when you realize that literally this someone is a vital piece of you.

I had one of those Monday. It happened to by my 18th wedding anniversary, but that didn’t cause the moment. Actually, David and I usually celebrate our anniversary with nachos and a hotdog at a ballpark here in Natchez. And this year was scheduled to be the same way with two children having games that night.

When I awoke Monday morning the first thing I noticed was the rain. &uot;Thank the good Lord,&uot; was my first thought, as my flowers were giving me fits. My second thought was &uot;License or not, Holly is not driving in this weather.&uot;

The third thing that crept into my barely awake mind was the sound of high-pitched wheezing -&160;the sound I have learned to identify as a bad thing.

If you live around an asthmatic you soon learn that there are different levels of wheezing, and each one signals something different.

There is the one that says David foolishly decided to pet the cat and forgot to wash his hands. This one only requires a puff or two on his inhaler and all is well again.

There is another one that says he is tired and pushing himself too hard. This one requires rest, pure and simple.

Then there is the one that sounds like nothing else in the world, and it invokes fear and respect. It is the one where I see he can’t take more than two or three steps without stopping, the one where the inhaler is as useless as using a sponge to clean up the Mississippi River.

David, like most asthmatics, will resist a trip to the hospital as long as possible. So when he said he needed to go to the hospital, I knew it was worse than he wanted to let on.

Later at the hospital as they X-rayed, started IVs and gave medicines I watched the monitor – the one that showed every beat as his pulse raced.

That was the moment I had to stop and think, &uot;what if?&uot;

What if I had to call his parents and give them bad new? What if I had to go home and tell our children their father was gone? What if this is the one asthma attack he can’t fight off?

Where would I be without this person who loves me 24 hours a day and supports me without fail in my endeavors?

I shook my head, cleared my thoughts and ignored the question. I called parents on both sides and let them know what was going on and ran home to get children going for the day. Begrudgingly, I let Holly head out in a car in the light rain.

When I returned to the hospital with his requested reading material I could tell he was feeling better; he was beginning to complain.

By the time this comes out, the patient will be back in his work mode, and I will be back in my busy mom mode.

And I will have pushed the moment far to the back of my mind where it will be carefully ignored for a while. It is a lot like when you think you hear a noise in the dark but you are too creeped out to go look.

It just proves that even grownups have things that they are scared of, things that instead of going bump in the night go bump in their hearts.

Christina Hall is the lifestyle editor at The Democrat. She can be reached at 445-3549 or by e-mail at christina.hall@natchezdemocrat.com