This is something i wrote for a newspaper a few years ago...
My Darling Lois,
It seems so long since we’ve been together, since I could smell your perfume, since I’ve seen your radiance. But I realize that’s how life is sometimes. We can survive this, because our love is stronger than any circumstance that might be front us. We’ve been through so much together, but that has only made our love stronger.
I remember our first date at the Homecoming Dance our junior year. Your baby sitter was late and my beer got warm, but it did not seem to matter. I was spellbound. Your daddy said, “Any woman that keeps a man ‘a waitin’ like that deserves both fists, one on each side of the face.” But to me, one was plenty. I know he still thinks of me as a wimp. And I remember our first fight, on our way home the same night. I can admit to you now, I was really scared that you would never speak to me again. I remember looking at your sweet face and praying to God that you would say something to me. But, after you started breathing again and woke up in the back seat, you thanked me and I knew it was love.
Later, I worked up the nerve to tell my friends that I was in love with you, and that I thought you loved me. They all laughed and said I was jumping to conclusions…like the time I caught you, Bob, Ray, and Pete, naked down by the creek. Well, ok, I couldn’t really see much of you at the time, but I recognized your moan. Well, sweetheart, maybe I do rush into things too fast. But can you blame me when you were the prize?
Sure, our marriage started out rocky. I guess they all do. A couple needs time to find an agreeable resolution to those subtle differences that define us as human. You and I are only human, after all… no mater what that smart-alecky doctor at the university says. If scientists knew that much about chromosomes, they would have found a cure for small pox by now. Sure, we had our differences – I liked my toast light and you liked it dark. You liked making passionate love in the backseat of a car outside a honky-tonk, and me…I like to be there when you did. But we worked through all of that.
I don’t know if I ever told you how proud I was to walk by your side. Maybe because you were so lady-like and classy. I never heard you belch in public without asking to be excused. And I was proud of the fact that you refused to be just a mother and a housewife. I’ll admit, you didn’t have to yell it in church, and at the dinner table on holidays, and when you were in labor, but I love a woman who is an individual. And so you took on a part-time job, in the evenings. I want to apologize once again for jumping to conclusions when I followed you to that bar and found you sitting on that cowboy’s lap. I feel like such a jealous fool. But once you explained to me that you were waitressing, and that he had spilled a beer in his lap, and that you were cleaning it up, and that jeans are very absorbent, and that this kind of service was expected to get a big tip, well, this jealous fool was humbled and saw the error of his ways. Had I only put two and two together, and saw your jeans were a little moist, and realized that some folks do like to be served in the back room with the lights out, I might have saved myself the embarrassment. No, I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I do ask.
After all, you were not without your petty jealousies. Remember the time you insisted I cut the apron strings between me and my mother? But heck, you were right. Just because she was widowed, jobless, and suffered from schizophrenia, that doesn’t mean we have to drive seven miles once a month to spend a half hour with her. After all, that’s what the nurses are for, and yes, that is six hours and nearly eighty-four miles a year. But you were so tolerant, and even used your time there to help that orderly clean the broom closet. But that’s you all over.
Yes, over the years you helped me become the man I am. And I’ve repaid you as best I could. Sometimes, it’s been a peck on the cheek as you lay sleeping. Sometimes, it’s been something as simple as the cash you asked for. But believe me darling I’ve never stopped thinking of you. And I know that this restraining order is just another in a series of big misunderstandings that always seem to befuddle us. I know that it will take more than the law, a rich boyfriend, and 1000 yards of lateral distance to keep us apart.
Maybe this letter will touch you. Maybe you will read it and hold it once again close to your bosoms, or maybe I’ll look though the scope of my rifle again, at 8:33, when you get the mail each morning and see you light it on fire with a match like all the others. But I’ll always be here for you.
Well, I have to go now. The old woman who owns these hedges seems to have nothing better to do than to trim them every day. And I have to go plug my ankle bracelet back into the phone line before someone figures out that my friend Carl isn’t with the phone company and has to connect the lines back together. My parole officer is such a stickler for rules! And I have to watch Dr. Phil, as he has promised a show today that will touch everyone.
Your loving Ed
Both the girls turtles won their age divisions. That meant they would be running against each other in the final for the grand championship. Well, the came in first and second! Why? Because the other two turtle champs decided to copulate and never left the starting line.
Emma, who is seven remarked, "Uncle Tim, those other two turtles never even tried!"
Maybe they tried too hard, Emma.
