Today is the 18th anniversary of my marriage to Pa.
On the day before our 18th wedding anniversary, while Pa was hard at work at Northfield, I bought my own anniversary flowers at the grocery store. I arranged them into three beautiful displays, and hope they live long enough so I can use them at the Northfield office this week for our open house. Pa informed me upon his return from Northfield that he had been thinking of taking me to the grocery store to get some flowers. But he didn’t.
Pa started today by singing ‘happy anniversary baby, got you on my mi-hind’. Mere moments later, he told me I smelled like a cow.
What he meant was that I smelled like leather (or so he says), but given his advanced age, he couldn’t summon the world ‘leather’ when complimenting – er, commenting on – my aroma. “Cow” doesn’t exactly bring to mind the most aromatic of smells. Cow conjures up splat patties, methane-filled barns, mud-encrusted fur. Perhaps I really do live on the prairie.
The day quickly went sideways when I came downstairs, presented Pa with the card I oh-so-thoughtfully procured from the drug store the day before our anniversary, only to receive nothing in return. Nada. No card. Not expecting a gift, but NO CARD.
In his defense, Pa exclaimed ‘but I was working at Northfield all day yesterday!’ Humph. There are 364 additional days in the year in which he could have purchased a card for me, his true love. Yes, I did mention this to him.
So Pa quickly set to the task of making me a card. Not the construction paper and crayon kind known to spring from juvenile fingertips, but one from actual card-making software.
In typical Pa-DIY fashion, Pa likes the freedom to craft his own prose. Pa likes being able to quick-like-a-bunny run to the computer and make a card, when he hasn’t taken the time to go get one. And Pa hates to spend money. So I’ve received one of these cards on pretty much every momentous occasion since Pa discovered this software.
Why, just this past Christmas, Pa penned a lovely message, praising me for the sacrifices that are routinely mine in this family. Like wearing socks with holes, or eating the food nobody else wants (the chilluns and Pa call me the family goat).
But in his haste to complete my Christmas card, he forgot a critical step in card-making: spell-check.
My sacrifices became transformed into scarifices.
Pa did not have a ready definition for ‘Scarifices’. I have been left to ponder the Freudian meaning and symbolism behind this transposition. Did he really mean ‘scary faces?’ I do a mean chicken impression. And a gorilla impression. And pig noises. And the evil eye. Maybe I should stop now…
Perhaps he meant ‘scar faces.’ I do have a scar on my face, from a bike accident when I was 9 years old. I forget about it, it’s faded so well. I remember feeling like a total freak with the stitches and the healing process so prominently displayed on my face, right out there for all to see. I remember my parents disagreeing about whether or not plastic surgery was needed, implying that my face would be hideous without it.
Or maybe what he really meant, in his kindly misspelled way, is that he really appreciates my sacrifices. Being the coupon queen of America, eating the leftovers, driving a 14 year-old car (whenever I need to travel with a fire extinguisher onboard, that’s my limit. That was my limit with the last car we replaced), all so we can keep our kids in their wonderful pioneer Christian school. Working hard to open Northfield for residents and the weekend program, so other women trapped by the eating disorder demons can be set free, even though I’m paid no salary for what I do. Or maybe it’s because he sees me lay aside my dreams and desires so others can achieve theirs.
I am a blessed woman, and it’s not because Pa is going to purchase me anything encrusted with diamonds to make up for the stunning lack of a card this morning. No, I am blessed because every day, he tells me he loves me, he tells me I’m beautiful, and he means it. Of course, he can’t see without his glasses at all, but isn’t that just like God? As I’m nearing that threshold of attractiveness, about to cross the Styx river of beauty, from which no one returns, Pa’s eyesight is failing in direct proportion and speed to the increase in wrinkles, age spots and gray hairs sprouting unsightly all over my pioneer body.
Thank you Lord, for 18 years of married life with Pa.
