Mr. Ronald Reagan, 40th president of United States of America- I may not have a keen understanding of his economic and foreign policies or the treaties he signed during his time. I may not have a full grasp of his political agenda and the nature of his administration. But I admire him for so many things- and this is just one of the reasons why he has a place in my heart…
♥
“In June 1971 I married a young woman who was eighteen years old and fresh out of high school. I was twenty-six and no more mature than she was. The marriage took place in Hawaii, and Dad did not attend. But just a few days before the wedding, I received a letter from him. It was straight from Dad’s heart- honest, old-fashioned, and wise. I cried when I read it, and I’ve read it many times in the years since then. My first marriage didn’t last. But four years later, on November 7, 1975, I married Colleen. I can’t imagine what I would have done or where I would have ended up without her. I have committed myself to living out the wise advice from my father’s letter every day of my marriage to Colleen. Here is what Dad wrote:
Dear Mike,
You’ve heard all the jokes that have been rousted around by all the “unhappy marrieds” and cynics. Now, in case no one has suggested it, there is another view point. You have entered into the most meaningful relationship there is in all human life. It can be whatever you decide it to make it.
Some men feel their masculinity can only be proven if they play out in their own life all the locker-room stories, smugly confident that what a wife doesn’t know won’t hurt her. The truth is, somehow, way down inside, without her ever finding lipstick on the collar or catching a man in flimsy excuse of where he was until three a.m., a wife does know, and with that knowing, some of the magic of this relationship disappears. There are more men griping about marriage who kicked the whole thing away themselves that there can ever be wives deserving of blame.
There is an old law of physics that you can only get out of a thing as much as you put in it. The man who puts into her marriage only half of what he owns will get that out. Sure there will be moments when you will see someone or think back on an earlier time and you will be challenged to see if you can still make the grade, but let me tell you how really great is the challenge of proving your masculinity and charm with one woman for the rest of your life. Any man can find a twerp here and there who will go along with cheating, and it doesn’t take all that much manhood. It does take quite a man to remain attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore, seen him unshaven, tended him while he was sick, and washed his dirty underwear. Do that and keep her still feeling a warm glow and you will know some very beautiful music.
If you truly love a girl, you shouldn’t ever want her to feel, when she sees you greet a secretary or a girl you both know, that humiliation of wondering if she was someone who caused you to be late coming home, nor should you want any other woman to be able to meet your wife and know she was smiling behind her eyes as she looked at her, the woman you rejected even momentarily for her favors.
Mike, you know better than many what an unhappy home is and what it can do to others. Now you have the chance to make it come out the way it should. There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps.
Love, Dad
P.S. You’ll never get in trouble if you say ‘I love you’ at least once a day.”
♥
A love like this is a rarity- couples who have the highest esteem for each other, who proudly demonstrated their thoughtful acts- couples who proved that the fabled “ever after” is attainable. Ronald Reagan, the man of his stature, was able to let himself get smitten everyday by Nancy- made sure that she knew, as the world around them witnessed, how proud he was to love and be loved by her. I’m sure there are some of you who aren’t enchanted as I am about their love- perhaps if you set your preconceived notions, cynicism and politics aside, we could come to agree.
My ex’s grandmother reminded me so much of Nancy. She had long been gone when I met Josh and I’d only seen her in pictures. Her clothes, frills, and the radiance she exuded in all photographs- just charming. With much certainty I concluded, she was a woman of class and taste. I hoped I could have met her in person. But I didn’t admire her just for those superficial attributes- it was for her love story with the man in the pictures beside her: Josh’s grandfather. Josh said his grandparents were so sweet and demonstrative to each other that almost all of his memories of them were romantic. It was like hearing a dreamy tale whenever he talked about them. I was thinking at the back of my head, “That, precisely, is what I want!” But I cringed at the thought after finding out later on that the grandfather he was referring to was actually step-grandfather. See, I sweat mundane details like that one- of course I did not get married thinking I would get divorced, much less get widowed like his grandmother. But every time I wore her fabulously studded ring that Josh gave me, I would wish to that beautiful thing, as if pleading to her, to guide a gusty wind of love towards my direction so we could get through the bleak episodes of our relationship.
Years after snipping romantic ties with Josh, I still think of her. Like this very moment. Now I can freely roam around my dreams of having what she had with her great love- now in my second shot at having my own “ever after”. I want to grow old and die being madly in love and loved back by my man and to have our grandchildren talk with eyes glistening at how in love their grandparents are- the way Josh did. I hope SuperYvon and I will be able to make our future grandchildren giddy too about our love. Because I know, in the end, that is all that matters.
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