Why do people wind up with each other? In my case, I think my wife, Cathy, and I complement each other.
Here are some examples that I think prove the point. I’m not relating this recent happening to elicit sympathy and get-well cards, but just for illustrative purposes. During the recent Christmas holidays, I capped off a three-week cold from hell with an attack of pancreatitis. There I was, stringing one last set of lights on the porch when a cannonball was shot directly into my stomach. This was my fourth case of pancreatitis over the previous twenty years, and once you’ve had this malady, you immediately know what’s happening. The pain is breathtaking, along with waves of nausea that prompt you just to ask a stranger to shoot you on the spot and put you out of your misery.
Staggering into the house, I told my wife and son that I was driving to the ER, which was laughable since I had no capacity to perform that simple task. So, I’m now sitting in the passenger seat, far beyond stoic, moaning my misery away.
My wife is at the wheel, carefully driving to the hospital so that our collective anxiety doesn’t result in an accident. But I needed to be in the ER RIGHT NOW! “Mother of God, can you please go over the speed limit? Please, I’m begging you!” I think Cathy increased the speed by 5 MPH, and we got there safely, with me opening the door as we came to a rolling stop and stumbling into the ER. Morphine was soon coursing through my veins, and that freight train of comfort soon squashed any pain I had.
The point of all this is that Cathy follows the rules. She prepares and sends in our tax returns on time each year. She keeps track of our finances, insurance, and all those responsible things important to an adult life. She has kept our extended family filled with love, paid the bills, and ensured the cupboards were always full.
For many years, I conducted various programs for people with disabilities. Cathy would ask me what I would do in class as I packed up my gear. I would tell her I had a general idea, but I would fill in the details as I thought about it while driving to work. I knew that I would make myself ABSOLUTELY PRESENT for the people in the program, opening myself up, and I knew creativity and improvisation would get me through the session. For me, it worked remarkably well. This was the antithesis of Cathy’s methodology.
If we are in a parking lot to pick up Chinese takeout on a Sunday afternoon, there might be just three or four cars in an empty parking lot. I’ll park the car, but if I’m over the striped line of the parking space, Cathy will let me know, and I’ll protest, say it doesn’t matter, but I move the car.
The roads around our Vermont towns are empty compared to traffic in our native New York. While I wait at an empty intersection to turn left, with no cars behind me, to my side, or across the intersection, Cathy will remind me to turn on my directional signal. I’ll ask, “Why? There’s no one to see it.” I am thrilled by the thought of the bulbs in my directional signals lasting forever.
Wonderful, structured people like Cathy make the lives of flighty people like me possible. This is my formal tribute to her. Without her sense of structure and purpose, I would be lost. Each day, I try to be more responsible as I realize I’m far from her standards, and she has the good grace to mark my minor accomplishments with praise.
I can make her laugh. She can keep me sane. She’s beautiful, and I’m ridiculously handsome for a man my age. We coexist and are blessed to be together.
Sweet!
Well said