There’s no love for a poor man...

“There’s no love for a poor man,” ahhh, now there’s a Google search term that just broke my heart. It isn’t true, you know, there is lots of love for a poor man, poor in riches, but well off in spirit. I married such a man, on purpose, and it was the best decision I ever made. He has a good heart and soul, comes from a large family, and built himself a business that has always kept food on the table and the lights on. How can I not admire such a man? He’s made something out of nothing. Besides having raised four kids, we’ve taken trips, gone camping, bought a house, had some great fun and good memories.

One of the best things about my job is that I get to work with a lot of widows and widowers and they tell me the most beautiful love stories, the stuff of fairy tales and romance novels, and yet very raw and real. They speak to me of how “he didn’t have two sticks to rub together” not “two nickles to his name” and yet they knew he was the one. They tell me tales about the Great Depression and WW2 and how they started with nothing, how poor they were, how they put their babies to sleep in dresser drawers.

The men tell me about having spied the most beautiful creature they had ever seen, about being scared and yet being hopeful. Some who never doubted for a moment that she would love them back, and some who doubted so much they rubbed their eyes every morning wondering if she was for real.

In hospice work they like to give you helpful handouts designed to comfort those in the grieving process with some useful “facts.” One such fact is that when you lose your wife or husband you tend to idolize and idealize them. A woman in her 90’s with the language of a sailor, told me that was a bunch of hooey. “I worshipped the ground he walked on while he was alive,” she said. “It’s only now, for the first time in my life I’m angry with him because he left me.” Painful stuff, but bittersweet, too. We have a great capacity to love.

That search term got to me because I know how important it is for many men to provide, to have a sense of self-worth that comes from their work. I see the toll a bad economy and limited opportunities take on men. Yes, women suffer too, but there is just something so innate to men that makes their work important to them. It goes farther than simple provision, it becomes a part of their identity, how they define themselves, their sense of self-worth and value. Pride, the good kind, often comes from having work you enjoy and being employed.

Times are changing and in spite of all the hype, the economy is not doing so well. Businesses are collapsing, people are being laid off. It is tough out there and there is collateral damage strewn about all over the place. We in the current age do not have the same economic opportunities all my widows and widowers had. It is far more challenging for us even earn a living let alone to rise up from poverty and create what our parents or grandparents did.

We are not our wealth or our work. We are not even our ability to produce and provide, we are so much more and we are all greatly loved. These are hard times that call for many of us to become rich in spirit, to store our treasures up in heaven. Traditionally men have often gotten their identity, their value, through their ability to provide and to provide as lavishly as possible. That is The World however, the materialistic way we learn to define ourselves. That is not who and what we are, that is not what God sees in us.

Now here’s something that men could actually learn from women, “work” is not always about money, work is about what we do and who we are and how we love.

It’s a serious issue, lots of suicides out there, financial stress breaking up families, young men feeling lost and unsure what their role is supposed to be. Be gentle with yourselves and oddly, look to your mothers and grand mothers. They are the one’s that understood that “work” is not always about money and that being “poor” does not have to mean being poor in spirit.

So, there’s no love for a poor man, yes, yes there is. All those great romantic stories I am so blessed to hear, all those long and happy marriages, began with a poor man who was greatly loved.

Of red satin bathing suits and turquoise eyes...

Work has been busy the past few days. Sitting in the doctor’s office the other day, I was privileged to chat with yet another women recently widowed, who needed someone to talk to about the miracle of love, a love she lost just 8 months ago.

The awe and wonder in her voice is something I share, feeling a bit bedazzled by the miracle of love, the synchronicity of events that must line up to make that happen. Grieving the loss yes, but also pouring over those memories and wondering how in the world she ever got so lucky. So many women have such a great need to try to explain what happened to them, to tell me who and what this man they married was all about, to pay tribute to their lost loves and to the miracle of it all.

She told me a lovely tale of having been engaged to this devilishly handsome doctor with turquoise eyes, well off, who often took her skiing to exotic places on dates. Although he had never actually proposed they were discussing wedding venues, guest lists, and china patterns. Everyone told her she had landed Mr. Right, he was the catch of the day, God’s gift to women, or so people said. She told me she was quite attractive herself, had a great figure, and a red satin bathing suit that was the envy of all. They were a golden couple indeed, and she felt like a movie star. It was a fairytale right out of Hollywood.

She was a nurse and one day while she was working in the hospital, a man came to the back door, where she would toss out stale water from the patient’s bedsides. When she opened the door she nearly doused him. It was still the tail end of the Great Depression where she lived and he was a salesman, selling paint brushes. He was a sad-looking man, torn suit, carrot orange curls in need of a cut, freckles and splotchy skin, the precise opposite of handsome.

Having nearly doused him with water, she apologized and shook his hand, and in that moment she just knew instantly that her life would never be the same. He was quiet, poor, unattractive, but there was just something there that called to her.

Bold as brass, he showed up at her door a few days later, with a huge bouquet and a box of chocolates and the man with the turquoise eyes was all but forgotten. Only a few months later, they got married. She had her whole life planned out, was doing everything “right,” and then along came carrot top and turned her world upside down. He went on to make his fortune and they spent 60 blissful years together.

Five years later when she had just gone back to work after her first child, she encountered the remnants of her man with the turquoise eyes. He had gotten married, abandoned his wife with two little kids, and he was God’s gift to women alright, as in he was gifting himself to women right and left and leaving a trail of collateral damage in his wake. “That could have been me,” she said, “if love had not blindsided me at the back door of that hospital so long ago.”

That evening she burned the red satin bathing suit on a rubbish pile in her backyard. “I don’t miss the man with the turquoise eyes,” she tells me, “but I sure do miss that bathing suit.”

“I don’t understand people who say marriage is hard work,” she tells me. “You just count your blessings everyday and don’t try to change people.” 

Words of wisdom from a fine-looking woman in a red satin bathing suit, who once thought she loved a man with turquoise eyes.

Why E-Books Stink

Actually e-books don’t stink, they smell like nothing. Gone is the stale musty scent of times gone by, the faint hint of vanilla and old ink.

You cannot get disgusted at an e-book and hurl it against a wall. There are people walking in the world who will never know the deep satisfaction that comes from slamming the receiver on an old telephone down, or hurling a book against the wall. That is sad.

You cannot comb garage sales and back alley bookstores seeking some ancient and well-loved copy of a rare e-book, some obscure piece of pulp fiction or a trashy little bundle of sci/fi, covered in dust and yellowing about the edges.

With e-books, there’s no reason to leave your home at all.E-books, well they self destruct. They cannot go missing for 40 years in someone’s attic only to be discovered among the cobwebs like some rare and priceless treasure, long hidden in a desert tomb.

You cannot tear the pages out of an e-book. This is an exceedingly cruel situation to find oneself in, especially when the author has done something with a character you do not like. How can I fix it for you, if I cannot tear out your pages and shred them?

You cannot write in the margins of an e-book. How can I possibly correct your grammar and cheap editing if I cannot scribble all over your work? There are things that must be said, notations made, sentences underlined. Who pours indifference over a book and refuses to converse with it? Who does that??!

E-books can die on you right in the middle of the best part! There is nothing worse than being threatened with a low battery right when you are about to get to the crux of the matter.

With a paperback one can always light a candle or get a flashlight when the power goes out. With an e-book, one is compelled to travel for miles just to find a public restroom with an electrical outlet so as to continue the story.

E-books lack the scars of love, the stretch marks and coffee stains that come from being well-loved and well shared. There are no torn covers, no wrinkles and finger prints that reveal this delicious little book once shared intimacy with others.

There are people who will never catch a whiff of an old cigar, the stale musty scent of times gone by, the faint hint of vanilla and old ink. People who will never know the joy of blowing off the dust, tucking those brittle yellow pages back into their spine, and lovingly caressing your new-found treasure.

That is very sad.

I, however, have known all these things and have inhaled the joy to be found there, devoured the contents within, and when disappointed, hurled the thing at the wall. How do I explain these things to my children and grandchildren, these secret things that are being lost and stolen, these moments they will never understand?

Marriage and Security Blankets

There's a memory from  long ago when the kids were small, about a terrible mother and Horrible, No Good Very Bad Thing. You see, we had this pink blankie with satin trim about the edges that went everywhere with us. It drug itself through sticky spilt soda, brushed passed discarded bubble gum, and wiped the snot off of runny noses, until it was no longer pink but a rather sickly shade of grey, with stiff spots about it. Its name was Fifi and when it went missing we could actually locate it by smell, a bit like one would hone in the signal of a lost cell phone coming from  between the couch cushions. It smelled of sour milk, public streets, and fermented apple juice.

One day this awful mother
who truly despised her children who wished to reduce the sheer volume of germs her children were being immersed in, decided to give Fifi a bath. Fifi cleaned up beautifully, soft, pink, and fuzzy once again, with shiny satin edges. Fifi was so grateful to be resorted to her former glory, she just glowed with pristine pink vibrancy.

And then the shrieking began.

"What happened to Fifi?? You've ruined Fifi! It's awful, It smells like...laundry soap! How could you?? I hate you, you're the worst mother ever!"

After two hours of apologies, of carefully applied reason, of slammed doors, and small accusing eyes full of condemnation, Hubby comes home to his tearful kid, now rather pathetically sucking her thumb and mourning the loss of Fifi. Naturally he is full of comfort and sympathy and begs to hear the whole story.

"I hate her, she ruined Fifi," is the tearful reply.

So Hubby turns to the Very Bad No Good Mother, eyes full of accusation and condemnation and says,  "How could you? You've ruined Fifi!" Hubby being well known for his completely reasonable requests, thrusts the blanket in her hands and demands, "Now...unwash it!"

It's a bit amusing, what is going through Hubby's head at this moment? As is rather typical of men, nothing much. He's thinking he's tired from working all day, his kid is distressed and sobbing, and he vaguely longs for the smell of a long forgotten Fifi of his own. Also, he's impressed with himself for having just fixed a simple problem.

Oh, but not true of the Very Bad, No Good Mother, oh no, she's processing bits of data at record breaking speed, speeds that would make a super computer envious. She's thinking, "My life is now in the hands of a six year old. My rock, the man who is supposed to protect me is showing and appalling amount of disloyalty. Betrayal, immaturity, failure to protect, weakness, irrationality, undermining, nix, nix, nix, bad man, very bad man...."

Hubby is thinking, "I can hardly wait to get my hands on the remote control."

Naturally the kid is now curled up contentedly with the destroyed Fifi, looking at the Very Bad, No Good Mother smugly.  "I won," her eyes say.

Ah yes, you won alright, but someday you'll have children of your own and I'll get the last laugh. Good things come to those who wait patiently.