You'd think that living with a man for going on 12 years
now, and after all the chaos we have had for six of those years, we'd grow
tired of one another and not have anything to talk about. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Mike is one of the most INTELLIGENT men I've ever met, and
his life experience and love of history add to that. And he's FUNNY. Last night, as he was making hot chocolate
(which helps with weaning off the Dilauded, apparently) we sat at the table and
TALKED. No television to distract, no
radio, just he and I and cups of hot chocolate.
And we talked. For a good two
hours, and this man can STILL make me laugh, BELLY LAUGH and giggle. Whether history (he was a history major in
college), any kind of history from all periods, or current events, he has a
brain that absorbs information, sports, religion, cars, ANYTHING, I always
learn something from him. He shared
stories of the Army and Ft. Leavenworth last night and I saw how hard it was
for a boy whose father left home when he
was six, whose stepfather left his mom
in disgust and divorce when he was a teenager, how hard it was to learn how to
be a man, how to make his way in the world.
Born to a 16 year old girl who never, EVER wanted him, and told him
every chance she got how much she hated him and how much he’d ruined her
life. From nine on he had to raise his brother
more often than not. He endured beatings
at the hands of his mother that were agonizing and painful enough to make him
pass out, only to wake up and have her start in again. He learned as a child that sleeping with a
heavy blanket on, even in summer, meant he had a few seconds to get his
thoughts together from out of a deep sleep when she’d come home at 3:00 a.m.
and start slamming a shovel handle down on him because she was pissed off and
drunk. She’d make a pot of runny
spaghetti or tuna casserole and then leave for a week, whoring around rodeos
looking for fun. To this day tuna
casserole is NEVER mentioned and I had to learn to make spaghetti that could
stand up like concrete or he wouldn’t eat it.
Nothing for me to get pissy about, I just had to learn that if I wanted
spaghetti, it couldn’t remind him one iota about the slop his mom made. He loves my spaghetti. Through a disastrous first marriage, loss and
pain, the 90's, when he limped through life, he was a totally rudderless ship
that just bounced off rocky shores. He
made his mistakes and had to own those mistakes and move on.
When we found each other, after 20 years, in 2001 he was
just coming out of those years of the 90's when he felt lost and felt the loss
of so much in his life. He didn't care
about living for many of those years and just went through the motions, yet
finding each other gave us both purpose.
I found a photo of us taken when we were moving him from Seattle to
Denver, where I lived at the time.
Katherine was only 11, we had a clean slate before us, time to draw up a
life together. We both looked worn out
by life yet willing to give it all another try with a new mate. Both
of us regret his lack of nerve in high school to try and engage me in more
conversation, and my absolute ignorance of what this gangly teenager was trying
to accomplish when he’d appear out of NOWHERE and try to get me to say “hi” to
him. He’d already faced so much
rejection and humiliation at home from his mother. He was afraid of feeling that same rejection
and humiliation from me, someone he fell in love with from across the crowded
hallways of school and could never summon enough nerve to just grab my hand,
sit me down, and tell me his true feelings.
We both went opposite directions, amazingly, our roads crossed several
times over the next 20 years and we never knew it. When our first conversation on the phone EVER
began with him saying, “I had the WORST crush on you in high school and you got
away from me. I can’t let that happen
again. We are meant to be together,” you
know your days of dating and searching are over. I’d been claimed and that was that. The photo I found during the move from
Seattle to Denver was that of a man with his arm around his new found love,
tired, yet still anxious to get on with our life and see what memories we could
create. There is completeness in our
lives now. While we wish we could go
back to the days of high school and live all that newness and youth and new
love and discovery we never got to have, we live in the here and now and try to
not let the past wants and wishes get in the way of what is. Reminiscing from time to time is fun, but why
waste time wondering about what could have been when we have to get through the
now.
The night before we got married at the courthouse in Golden,
Colorado, I found him on the bed, lying on his side staring at the wall. I asked what was wrong and he motioned for me
to lie down next to him. I scooted in
close to him so he curled up behind me.
He put his arm around me and whispered in my ear, “Please, don’t ever
lie to me, cheat on me, or steal from me.
Can you promise me that? I am
scared and I need to know.” I made that
promise. He was scared stupid. All of the past that he’d been trying to run
from and ignore slammed full into him and he had to crawl through the wreckage
to get to me.
I can’t lie and say the past 12 together have been
idyllic. No one can. God knows we have been through a LOT. But you make your mind up that you will just
get through it and never let go of hands.
We held each other and cried when my uncle was murdered. My uncle was the closest thing he ever had to
a father figure and it was with my uncle riding around in a truck that he first
saw me when I was in the eighth grade.
Uncle Francis was THRILLED when we finally sealed our lives together,
and we were the last two family members to see him alive before he was
murdered. He’d seen two people he loved
come together and then he went Home.
Mike toweled me off after my shower and dressed me in the hospital after
my hysterectomy. He held my hand when I waiting
for my cancer surgery, scared about having my back cut open to widen margins
around my melanoma site. He suffered
through nine months of pregnancy (I like to remind him just how good God truly
is when you call your wife a Silverback Gorilla and LIVE to see the next day),
Ali’s birth, Katherine’s stupidity and refusal to play by house rules and show
respect, my mother shredding our family, his grandma’s illness and death,
moves, job losses, home losses, his diabetes and all the insanity that goes
with that, returning to prison work, his knee and eye surgeries, the first time
he saw his grandchildren for the first time and held his grandson, hugging his
daughter for the first time in 18 years, and finally, the night he nearly died
because a raging bacteria found an opportunity to jump on a body and wreak
havoc and hell on him.
After all this time with each other, and all we have been
through, I still learn new things about him every day. He is fascinating and if he has an opinion,
it’s not from a knee jerk, emotional reaction.
Rather, it’s from an educated and logical attempt to reconcile that
opinion to his life and his beliefs. He
taught me that knowledge is power, and power does not mean broadcasting
everything that enters your brain, but holding on to that knowledge to further
your way down the road, to make things work in your favor. Earning his trust wasn’t easy. I had to work HARD to earn it, but it’s made
me a better woman and wife. I have found
my voice and my spine and earned his respect, which he does not freely give to
women. I’ve learned with to speak up and
I’ve learned when to shut up. I’ve
learned that a man’s respect and trust will get you further in a relationship
than a tight body and perky boobs, but I’d still love to have the latter as
much as I have the former. No matter, he
loves me just as I am. A tight body and
perky boobs won’t make helping him off the toilet when his leg has been chewed
up by a bacteria, but it would make the process more fun. I will make note of that for later. We can joke and tease each other mercilessly
yet we have each other’s back. I married
a man that can make a gas grill sing and make steak from that gas grill taste
like manna from heaven. He commandeers
the kitchen at Thanksgiving and revels in his dressing and what woman doesn’t
love someone else cooking Thanksgiving dinner?
He has seen things in prison life, some of which he has told
me, much of which he won’t. When he left
the Army and began working at Kansas State Pen, his size and muscle was used to
pound inmates. Day and day out for six
months, “Mongo” was ordered to keep inmates in line. This was back in the day when inmates didn’t
have more rights than their victims. He’s
not proud of it now, that’s just the way things were handled back then. For a child that was hated from birth, and
endured brutal beatings, the anger and hatred he’d bottled up for so many years
was now being unleashed and prison was where it was all let out. He gained a reputation but also respect. When he went back to prison work at Oregon State
Pen he was taken around on a tour and incredibly heard, “Hey bossman!” He turned to see a prisoner that he’d had at
KSP. The inmate shook his hand and
turned to the man taking Mike around the prison. “Man, I got some stories about this man—he was
BADASS.” “Ok, let’s keep that under
wraps, D. That was then and this is now
and I don’t need that rep following me here.”
The inmate understood and nothing else was said, ever. I later learned that when an inmate calls an
officer “BOSS” it’s an acronym for “Stupid Son Of a Bitch.” Unless you know prison language, you think
you’re being called a name of honor. The
inmate wasn’t calling Mike a derogatory name, he truly DID respect him. But, as I said, I am always learning
something from him.
I have written so much about the last six months because it
was so impactful on our lives. It has
also given me so much newfound respect and love for this man that I exchanged
vows with. I am SO thankful he’s still
around to sit at the table at 11:00 p.m. after a long day, and make me giggle
over cups of hot chocolate. What a
privilege it is to be called his wife.
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