When my wife and I were in our first years of marriage, we didn’t have a lot of money. One Christmas, we decided not to buy gifts for one another, but make them instead. Her gift to me was most memorable: a book of coupons.

One was a coupon for “Extra time browsing at Barnes & Noble”, another was a “Get out of doing the dishes” coupon, but my favorite one came with the promise that it was “infinitely renewable”. It said: “Shut up and hug me.”

When she gave it to me, she explained what it meant: “Any time you see me getting so caught up in something important I’m doing (or something that I think needs to be done) that I forget to stop, look you in the eye, and really be there with you, you can hand me this coupon and expect an immediate response. And you…