I kept asking God why?
Why put me with Parker? We were so different. I’m no believer in the one true love, the soul mate so why send me three thousand miles away from home to put me together with a man who was my opposite in many ways? Surely there could have been someone closer, someone whose interests and mine were more in sync.
There were times I missed wearing my silk blouses and summer-weight wool slacks instead of the uniform I’d come up with which consisted of nurses scrub pants and a t-shirt. I had learned early in our marriage that I could be called on at any time to catch escaping chickens, move pigs, or be the extra hand on a building project. I couldn’t wear clothing that needed to be dry-cleaned, that was for sure. And forget polished shoes or any kind of heel.
It wasn’t just about me. How about Parker?
Parker wanted a woman with long hair, while mine was chin length. He liked Homer and Jethro singing “Pal Yat Chee” while I preferred the original, the opera “Pagliacci.”
Also, was inflicting me on Parker fair to him? That incredibly generous and humble man who paid no attention to his own needs in order to care for others, who was the last one to take a seat in case there weren’t enough, the last one through the line at a church supper— didn’t he deserve better? Shouldn’t God have found a woman more to his liking, a long-haired woman who enjoyed cooking and would choose downloading Moose Turd Pie over Pachabel’s Canon in D?
When I asked that question more than once God said, “Look at your life.”
Looking At My Life
“What are you doing today?” I asked Parker.
“Carol Jones said her oven stopped working again. I’m going over there to try to figure out what the problem is. What about you?”
“I could go with you. I want to clean her bathroom. She can’t kneel anymore and her bathroom is a mess.”
Parker gathered his tools and we headed out.
* * *
At Carol’s house we made our way past the “Trespassers Will Be Shot” sign, pushed open the gate on the chain-link fence and gave treats from the bags we kept in the side pockets of our vehicles to the yard dogs. Of course she had dogs—dogs she fed when she could hardly afford food for herself. Dogs that adored her, gave her the unconditional love she craved.
We moved carefully up the porch steps, keeping to the middle where the extra support was. The porch was crammed with a broken camp stove, a broken weed-whacker, a couch and a rocking chair. The couch and rocker would have been a nice place to sit if they hadn’t been stacked high with boxes full of who-knows-what.
Carol called out to let ourselves in.
Parker worked on the oven while I cleaned the bathroom.
“Don’t you get rid of any of my good stuff,” she said.
“Now, how am I supposed to know what the good stuff is? You have five half-full bottles of lotion in here.”
“I like my lotions. Don’t you get rid of any of them.”
“How about the medicines? Can I toss the expired ones?”
I poked my head out the door and grinned at her. “Come on, let me throw something out. It’s no fun otherwise. Just the expired medicines, okay?”
“Okay, but only the expired ones.”
Because I begged her to, she sang the Gospel songs of her youth in her southern twang, insisting her voice wasn’t up to it but I said, “Yes, it is and I want to hear you sing. That’s what it’s going to cost you to let me clean your bathroom.”
A few hours later, having solved a few more problems for Carol, we went home. That was our day, one like many Parker and I spent together. A day filled with the fruits of the spirit: love, peace, joy…and expired medications thrown out.
That night Parker and I held hands, as we sat on our couch with the dark blue slip covers. Having given up hope our own house would ever be finished, I had chosen dark blue to match the lettering on the insulation that covered our walls. You go with what you’ve got. And what we had was insulation not dry wall. Well, we had dry wall, it just wasn’t on the walls because Parker was too busy fixing other people’s houses to do ours. That was what was keeping us from selling it so we could go off to serve missions and spend all day every day doing this kind of work. That house, and my soul, would take another year and a half of remodeling before God decided we were ready to go.
In the meantime, we sat in our unfinished room where a cobalt blue vase filled with zinnias from the green house provided our only pop of color.
As I sat I heard God’s voice in my heart. “Now do you understand why I put you two together? He needed a wife who would support him in his constant service without complaint. You are equally yoked.”
“I think Parker is a much better person than I am when it comes to service.”
“Trust me. You are equally yoked by your hearts for service. The rest is superficial.” [END HERE? Ending A]
Oh.
Some Days
Some days I wake so in love with my life I can hardly believe my good fortune. I smile at Parker lying beside me, thinking how did I get this lucky?
“What?” He bends an elbow, propping himself up on his hand to watch me.
I say, “Nothing. I just love you.” When what I really want to do is leap out of bed, hug Parker, and shout, “I love every minute of my life and the best part of it is you.”
But that seems a bit excessive. So I punch it all down inside myself, where it refuses to stay but insists on bursting out somewhere and the only opening is my eyes, which is where Parker is looking—so I think he knows. [OR HERE? Ending B]
The End.
Love your work!