Day 2

Today’s my wife’s birthday.

Like a freight train, I have seen and felt it coming, not at 60 miles an hour, so a guy can be seized with panic and start moving, this birthday has been dallying up to me at 5 miles an hour while I have stared at it, mesmerized with the possibilities…a trip!

Jewelry!

Something hand-made!

Each option petering out as the day gets closer and the funds dwindle lower until now, today, I’m left with a card from a grocery store, dinner and a movie, and something practical like a crock pot.

This wisdom I give you each day comes more from my foolishness then from any other source:

Love your mate.

The thought that Love is an emotion is crap. True, love sometimes starts that way, but if left to its own devices, that emotion soon dies away and that is the reason that people start hopping on the 4 year divorce cycle. Real love absolutely requires actions or it is doomed.

Love is patient. Love is Kind. Love does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud.

If this looks vaguely familiar, it’s because there’s an excellent chance they read it at your wedding. I know they read it at mine; it’s the verse from the Bible the minister recommended when we couldn’t come up with one ourselves. Mind you I have no recollection of that scripture being read- I was sort of in a dazed, pressurized fog brought on the partly by the importance of the moment and mostly by the 103 degree temperature.

I remember being really, really hot, and watching the minister sway back and forth wondering if he was going to keel over. I also remember my feet hurting in the cheap plastic shoes that came with the tux I rented. Turns out he was also watching me rock back and forth, thinking I was going to keel over. Anyway we both made it, and we both forgot about it. He went back into retirement (brought out only for the moment) and I went out the door gliding on the wings of emotion.

So now I read the words again after 20 years of marriage and I see how hard love is. I see that love is an action statement. Read the sentence above and replace the words with your name:

______ is patient. (are you? When the bozo leaves the socks on the floor for the millionth time, or for crying out loud, how tough can it be to park the car in the garage the right way?)

_____ is kind. (when she asks “how do I look?” can you stop whatever you are doing, and really look, and say “I think that really brings out your eyes.” When he comes home with that end-of-the-day weariness, can you say “thanks for all you do?”)

As I work through the list I see how loving my wife means putting me aside, and putting her first. The more I do that, the more I love her. The more I love her, the happier she is. The happier she is, the happier I am, and then –wham!- I’m pulled back 20 years to those emotions that started the whole thing.

There is an ad campaign for a dating service that talks about “finding your soul mate.” This is dangerous, evil, claptrap designed to make you think that love is easy and effortless.

I’ve talked to divorced people. I’ve talked to widows and widowers. I’ve talked to a couple celebrating 60 years “of wedded bliss”.

And here is the wisdom they share:

1-Love is hard work.

2-Love is also the most rewarding work you will ever do.

Get to work.