Close enough to perfect for him

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40 years ago my late husband and I began "living in sin".  He was fresh out of a divorce from his wife of many years which had produced 4 children.  I was fresh out of divorce from my fourth husband.  To say we were both a little "iffy" on whether or not this was a wise move, would be an understatement,  but what the heck.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  And those 4 words seemed to be the basis of the whole relationship.

My son was still in high school and my youngest daughter was in middle school.  His wife had kept the house and he had money in his pocket to make a down payment on this house.  He had an end dump and I was working for a construction company that he worked for.  Lot of strings there but we seemed to have a lot in common.  I was freshly out of my second marriage to my fourth husband so with 5 divorces on my resume', he proposed.  I accepted with one stipulation: We would live together  (in sin) for one year.  If we survived that year, we would make it legal.  

Now, I never thought of him as a romantic, but being a local gravel/demolition hauler, he spent a lot of time listening to the radio as he drove up and down the road.  He came home one night to announce that he had heard the perfect song for us.  "Close Enough to Perfect" by Alabama.   The lyrics were what he heard and thought it fit me to a "t".  I was touched. Kenny was such a simple, black and white person that I could not have found a better song!

"Some times her morning coffee's way to strong.  And everything she says, she says all wrong."                She's always there beside me, as only a friend would be.  She's close enough to perfect for me!                      Sometimes she gets down and starts to cry, but then again the lady has a right.                                            She's all I ever hoped for, she's all I'll ever need.  She's close enough to perfect for me!"

Now, I ask you, could any woman hope for more in a life partner?  All my life I had searched for a man who would be my partner.  A man who would care for me just like I was with all my faults and phobias.  He was the first man I ever met that accepted me just like I was with all my imperfections.  And I could trust him.

So one year after moving in with him on December 23, 1983 when the temperature was -15 degrees. we hopped in "Fugi" and drove to Canon City, got a license, found a retired minister in a high rise senior housing and took our vows.  We stopped at the donut shop and had a donut and returned home to live happily ever after until death us did part.

So, good morning world.  I have been living alone now for almost 20 years.  Am I happy?  I am not unhappy.  Am I lonely?  I am alone, but not lonely.  I manage to get through the days and sleep through the nights.  Do I date?  Not really.  That would entail dressing up and actually leaving the house.  I would like to spend more time with my kids and grandkids, but they are back in Kansas or down in Texas and I have a neurotic cat that hides when anyone comes.

Mother always said memories are better than the actual living, because we can remember things the way we want.  So, from my perfect world, to your perfect world...

Peace!

Beauty is skin deep.

I was never what you call pretty growing up.  Even as a teenager, I was on the scrawny side.  My hair was brown and my front teeth were over sized and stayed that way my whole life through.  I was very sickly and spent lots of time with an ear ache and a pain in my side that was attributed to appendicitis.  However, when I was 12 years old I was rushed in for an emergency tonsillectomy.  Strange as it may seem, I never had a sick day after that.  I did remain skinny, weighing in at 92 pounds when I married my first husband at the age of 19.

I have managed to go my entire life without an inoculation of any kind.  I was always so jealous of the kids who had the small pox vaccination scar on their arm.  Now I do not know how I managed to survive and not get vaccinated for anything, but I did.  Well, about 25 years ago I was trying to fly a kite in the field next door and stepped on a nail.  Kenneth took me to the emergency room and the doctor wanted to "update" my tetanus vaccine.  I told him I had never been vaccinated against anything in my life.  He gave me the tetanus shot and I let him because Kenneth was between me and the door.   I left with instructions to make an appointment in his office for my immunizations.  Never kept that date and the matter was dropped.  So I will say this, I am very healthy and rarely ever get sick.  (There was that time I was laid low by a bad batch of hummus from Sam's, but that was man made misery in a tub.)

So back to the subject.  My sister's were all pretty and actually had a shape.  I remained a stick figure on the horizon and when I would complain, mother would just tell me.  "Beauty is skin deep."  To be honest, that did not help much.  Of course as life goes on, things become more important than beauty.  And something that I learned early was that an abusive husband will prey on your weakness.  I had 3 of them, followed by one that was just a user and then I met Kenneth.  Kenneth never told me I was beautiful. He told me I was smart.  He told me I was a worker.  He told me I was dependable.  He told me I was trustworthy.  He told me he was comfortable with me.  He told me he loved me.  He loved my mind. He loved my compassion.  He loved my zest for life.  He loved my cooking.  He loved everything about me and I began to feel beautiful.

And of course Mother came for regular visits.  One time we were discussing life before Kenny and she was telling him how I had raised the kids alone and many times gone without food so they could eat.  Kenny chimed in at that point with, "Well, you could never tell by looking at her that she ever missed a meal!"   He had a way of putting life in a perspective that made it work.

One time I made the remark that  I had never felt pretty.  And beautiful was a word that was never  used in the same sentence with my name.  He looked at me kind of strangely when I said that.  His answer was all I needed.  He said, "Yes, beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone."  And then I understood, that this simple man thought I was beautiful and I have held to that thought through all these years.

I had a man once in my life that saw through my exterior and into my soul.  That only comes around once in a lifetime but it lasts forever.