Mary taught me a lesson in composure yesterday, simply by stating (to an extremely nasty person) things as they were, without any stray movement across any margins or boundaries; without any vindictiveness or swearing (mind you, I am generally good on that one myself) (well, maybe not generally, but sometimes); without any drama at all. She hit a nail on its head, and then put her toolbox away (metaphorically speaking).
She also taught me something about the value of words. She was deleting email she had no desire to read, and as she hit the delete key the words “empty trash” came up. Suddenly, she said, the phrase took on new meaning, transforming from verb + noun into adjective + noun, lending itself to compound noun. She said she thought to herself, “Yes, this is empty trash” and she hit the button and…
Mary is the same woman who, when I said a few years ago that I had hit rock bottom, reminded me that this was good, “because the bottom is where we start building up.” You have no idea how long I held onto that sentence; how many terrible days and weeks and months her words carried me through. She has had wise answers for many of my impatient questions, and I am not alone in the demands I make on her.
She cooks, cleans, repairs drywall, builds walls, erects porches, bakes, writes music, sings, plays guitar (and some piano, violin and banjo), tends to the animals, makes travel plans, rips up carpet and flooring, manages an office, helps and loves my children and grandchildren, rubs my sore places, gardens, listens, laughs, remembers birthdays, introduces me to new places and things, teaches, and carries her 17-year-old 75-pound dog, a golden retriever, up and down two long flights of stairs several times a day.
I know that Mary looks like what she is: reliable (or a woman of the Scottish hills, which is probably why our friend Mike calls her Highland Mary). And I also know that on more than one occasion she has been treated poorly on account of it. I have family members, in fact, who did not want her coming to their backyard barbeque, for fear she might touch my arm and give their adult children a bad impression (or, perhaps, a disease).
I know that she had difficult childhood and young adult days, too, as people in her own life struggled, and too often failed, to come to terms with her desire to spend her private life with women. The world isn’t nearly as evolved as you might think, or as it claims to be.
Conversely, I also know how admired, respected, revered, appreciated, and loved she is by a great number of people…probably because, as Rudyard Kipling advised, she keeps her head when all about her are losing theirs and blaming it on [whomever].
She can be funny, too – like the time we were on a beach and saw a flash of lighting, and she glanced at her umbrella and then at me: “Here, hold this,” she said. Or the other night, when I was rambling on about something funny but entirely inappropriate and she smiled with all her teeth showing and said, “My my my – look at the time!”
I am not nearly as good to her as I ought to be; as careful in the way I say things or how I react. And I am not able to keep up in ways that would be to Mary’s benefit. I have fantasies, in fact, that someday, after I have gone off fishing with my mother and Don, Mary will find somebody wonderful – someone able to work alongside of her, bending and lifting and kneeling, tending to the various tasks, smiling as they bring in an armload of summer flowers or jump feet first into the lake at the cottage.
The world is a funny place, and life can be strange. We never know who we will meet or why we meet them; what lies ahead, or how our pasts will influence our future choices. No matter how long I live, though, I will never understand what I have done, or haven’t done, to have been blessed with two such wonderful partners in one such remarkable life.
Why does the lamb love Mary so?
Love Mary so? Love Mary so?"
