As I was heading home at the end of a long day and contemplating the excellent dinner that would be waiting for me (lentil stew, as it turned out—pretty close to what Esau gave up his birthright for), I decided there should be a day we husband set aside to honor our wives. Not Mother’s Day, when most of us are scrambling to remember our moms, but something just for our spouses, when we can tell them how grateful we are, every word a prayer. Like this:
Thanks, honey, for all the hard work you did raising the children. Teaching them how to say please, thank you and “Can I be excused from the dinner table?” Remembering to take them shopping for new clothes (how could you tell their shoes were too small?). Understanding their homework. Telling them, “Ask your father.”
Thanks for ignoring me when I’m excessively grumpy and indulging me when I’m on the verge of a rant and not rolling your eyes when you have to listen to me tell the same story again even though you’ve heard it a thousand times.
I’m so glad that you can tell me what good books to read and save me from reading half of them by sharing me what they said. And even though you say you’re not good at hiding your true feelings, you do a fine job of tolerating my music and my favorite radio station in the car.
Speaking of the car, thanks for letting me navigate and not holding it against me for all the times I made the wrong turn or raced that yellow light or underestimated how long it would take us to get there (“just another ten minutes” stretching into half an hour).
I’m grateful for all the friends you’ve brought into our lives, the funny stories they tell, the retail triumphs they recount to you on the phone. Not until I got married did I understand the thrill behind the words, “It had been marked down three times!” or “It was exactly my size!”
Everyone knows you are smart and funny and wickedly clever, but I’m the one who also knows you are compassionate, caring, deeply empathetic and so sentimental that you can cry at a TV commercial and frequently do. Thanks for sharing your soft, vulnerable side with me.
I look forward to growing old and gray with you and being just like that couple that sits in church as she brushes the lint from his lapel and he folds over the tag on the back of her dress so it’s not sticking out and she whispers to him the names of the people he can’t remember because she remembers everything. Heck, we’re half-there already.
Neither of us knew exactly what we were signing up for when you walked down that aisle carrying a bouquet, but we trusted in our love and trusted that God would see us through the tough times as well as rejoice with us in our happy moments. Who knew that it would be even better than we guessed?
Thanks for being my wife.
