How can I describe the man I've been married to for 52 years in a few short paragraphs? Therefore, I continue. We met at a farm cow pond outside my home town. That farm no longer exists. It's been made into a park. Bob later said he decided the instant he saw me I would be the mother of his children. Maybe his wife. He was a Californian. His standards were skewed.
We'd been dating 3 1/2 weeks when he proposed, but he still wanted me to finish college. He said it would be a real feather in his cap to be a soldier who's wife had a college education. At the time, he was a high school drop out. Eventually, he was able to get his GED and an AA. College meant a lot more back then than it does today. However, he was transferred to El Paso, Texas, shortly after our engagement and my dad was out of work while the mill went on strike. I came home from college, never expecting to return.
Several months later, I followed him to El Paso, and we were married by a chaplain on Ft. Bliss. Thus began out adventures of travel and becoming one as Scripture mandates. I always wanted to travel and being married to a soldier made travel a high priority. We went from Ft. Bliss, Texas; to Butzbach, Germany; back to Ft. Bliss; to Ft. Huachuca, Arizona; to New Jersey; to Colorado; to Pennsylvania, back to Ft. Huachuca; to Ft. Shafter, Hawaii; to Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri where he retired from an honorable career with the United States Army. In between those major moves were several smaller, temporary moves. Even after the army, we had several more. Many of the families we knew in the service would separate for long periods of time for convenience' sake. Bob said, "We're family. We go together." I appreciate that. At times it was highly inconvenient, but it's not easy being both mother and father. The boys needed their dad and I needed my husband.
I admire my husband for his courage. Rickets and broken legs weren't the only things he's suffered in his life. In Hawaii, his ulcer perforated. He continued to work for 8 months with that perforated ulcer now forcing the pancreas to close the open sore, damaging the pancreas in an effort to keep the intestine from spewing its contents into the abdominal cavity. The doctor who performed the surgery was literally in a state of shock when he came out of surgery. "I don't know how he stood the pain." I had a few choice words (no swearing) but he understood what I thought of the military doctors who'd mocked him and accused him of malingering. To prove them wrong, Bob continued to work.
In Chicago, he had a ruptured diverticulum. Again he endured excruciating pain for weeks. I finally had the opportunity to return to college to finish my degree and he suffered in silence, concerned that he was dying of cancer, but determined to keep me going to school with only school on my mind. Little did he know! My dad had passed away the previous December and the plan was that I would visit my mother during Spring break. Fat chance. By now, he had lost so much weight, he was literally skin and bones. I cancelled my trip and he had surgery the Monday after Easter. The doctor again was amazed. "He should have been popped out like he was 9 months pregnant, able to keep nothing down, and running a sky high temperature, but he had no symptoms." He also said it would take at least 6 weeks for Bob to be able to return to work. He was back in 3.
Bob's taught me a lot over the years regarding work. As NCOIC of his department, he'd not be required to be at work until 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning, but he'd be there by 5:30. All his paper work would be completed without the interruptions he knew would be the order of the day once the rest of the hospital was up and running. When he was stationed in Ft. Leonard Wood, our home was 30 miles away, meaning he'd have to leave very early in the morning to be at work by 5:30. Even in Chicago, as a civilian, he'd leave for work at the 100+ year old Cook County Hospital. Not only was the hospital old, nurses and doctors were as incompetent on machinery as I am. "There's only one way to put the paper in the machine, but they'd get it in backwards and wonder why the machine didn't work." He'd often be called out to fix a non-functioning piece of equipment, only to find out it wasn't plugged in. That's the sort of things he faced all day, so he wanted his paperwork out of the way first. Staying late was not his thing. He firmly believed in doing the job and going home, even if it meant going to work very early.
His sense of humor has not only kept us laughing, but it's been his way of expressing tenderness. Men his age aren't supposed to have feelings. My first pregnancy was difficult. I was so sick, I lost 20 pounds in the first three months. Although he hated shopping, he did that particular Sunday that was very rough for me. It was Mother's Day. He walked into our tiny apartment, carrying a cake. "You can only eat 1/3 of it because you're only 1/3 of a mother."
When the priest admonished the bride and groom at their wedding that the Bible says the husband is to be like Christ, Bob whispered, "Big deal. You get to go home and do dishes for me. I get to go out and die for you!"
The day he took a 15 mph exit ramp on 2 wheels, he asked me if I was scared. "Me, too," he said at he patted my let. When he forgot to set the brakes on the ATV and it headed for the canyon, leaving us stranded in the wilderness, he asked if I'd had my adrenaline fix for the day after we got it stopped before disaster happened.
Bless his heart, he's been with me through thick and thin. Literally. Like I said, when he quit smoking, it was over. Not so for me with food. He once said he'd love me no matter what I weighed. I'm grateful for that, but won't stop trying to make him proud of me. I'm so very proud of him.
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