My Better Half

Can I tell you about my husband?

I know this photo doesn’t exactly show you a whole lot . . . but actually it does. This is my perspective of him a lot of the time.  He’s way ahead of me.  He walks faster, thinks faster, accomplishes things much faster than I.  Faster than probably most people.  I’m usually trailing behind at some distance, struggling to keep up.  His brain works very fast.  I can’t tell you how many times he’ll ask me something, or make a remark and I just look at him, completely befuddled, but not wanting to let on, and scrambling to guess what on earth he might be talking about.  He’ll be thinking about something and then comment or ask a question, not realizing I have no idea where his mind has been.  It can drive me crazy, and it can make me just love and appreicate him even more.

He is so the opposite of me it’s not even funny.  We could be the perfect example of “opposites attract.”  He grew up avidly watching all kinds of sports with his family. My parents took me to the opera.  He can do mathematical equations in his head, lickity-split.  I still add on my fingers and say words like “lickity-split.”  He is a logical thinker.  I live in Dreamland most of the time. He is perfectly comfortable talking to anyone under the sun and could strike up a conversation with someone who doesn’t even speak English.  I feel awkward in many conversations, walking away asking myself, “Why did you say THAT, you weirdo?!”  Yet we’ve been married for 32 years now.  Something must be working.

There can’t be anyone else on earth that works harder than he does.  As I sit here on the deck of our cabin, looking out over Lake Superior, I hear him inside, up at his desk, on the phone.  Working.  He’s always working.  Even as we travel cross country to get here, he’s working as he drives, making phone calls.  Stopping along the way to accomplish some sort of business for his business.  It’s enough to make a woman crazy.  And it’s enough to make a woman feel so very secure.

I’ve never worried a day of our marriage about whether or not we could buy some groceries, make a payment here or there.  Though, I know he’s lost sleep over those things.  Not that we haven’t had our share of lean times, mind you, but somehow I always knew we’d be OK.  He’s been that sort of provider for me and for our family.  Sometimes, while in Dreamland, I wonder why in the world I’m so blessed.  How did I get such a wonderful husband when so many others don’t?  I have to say, sometimes I feel like the “scales” are going to swing the other way and balance out and “calamity will befall me.”  But enough about me and my issues, this is meant to be about my hubby, my better half.

Want to know something funny?  We joke with each other about who’s going to die first.  Isn’t that hilarious??  No? Well, we do if in a funny way. It’s a bit of a competition.  Not who’s going to live the longest – but the shortest!  I’ve informed him he may not go before I do.  I am much more dependent on him than he is on me.  In fact, he always says he “never looks back.”  I (jokingly . . . or not) tell him he’ll maybe miss me for two and a half days.  Then, forward he’ll go.  On to getting something accomplished.  I don’t know what I’d do without him.  God forbid.  I look back way too much, too much for my own good.

I don’t deserve him, that’s for sure.  But I’m very glad God brought us together.  Does God orchestrate future husband and wife meetings in little college bars?  Yup.  Wouldn’t it be nicer to say we met in church?  More proper, perhaps, but not true for us.  No matter where we started, we’ve been traveling through this life together . . . me, a few steps behind, him ever ahead. But always within sight of one another.  I love him so.