How many 20 year relationships will you have in your life? Not many. How many of those relationships can you count on no matter what happens? Ever fewer. My wife is the gold standard for the word reliable. When she says something will be down, it’s done. Oh, you may think I’m talking about taking out the trash, calling a doctor or something else hum drum and every day. Nope. She has problems with that like everyone else. The reliability I speak of is personal, private and special.
I can give you two great examples of the reliability my wife brings to our marriage. In the early days we constantly argued about the little things. Who am I kidding? We still do it. The main thing we argued about was money. We made some super stupendous mistakes and had to pay for them. As the man of the house, I took this as a great, personal failure on my part. I didn’t listen to the people in my life giving me good, solid advice. My wife decided to take control of our finances from that point on. She did it quietly, lovingly and reliably. I’ve come to label her as the CFO when I speak to others; clearly making it known she runs our finance side. She’s done this reliably for over 10 years now and our marriage is much stronger for it.
My second example concerns my daughter and her education. Through previous posts you learned that my daughter was born premature. At the time she was born, she was the smallest baby to survive birth. From the first day of my daughter’s life my wife has been there educating, tutoring and watching over my daughter’s learning. It’s become so pervasive that it’s second nature to my daughter to seek my wife’s guidance in almost anything school related.
At this point you’re thinking, “So, what. Any good mother would do that.”
Ah, but this is what you fail to understand. Right before my daughter was born the neonatologist pulled me outside the room. He slowly pulled an index card out of the scrubs pocket on his chest. I could see the writing and what looked a simple table. The doctor explained that I needed to know what we were dealing with. He detailed that white female babies had the second highest chance of living after black female babies. I later learned this is followed by white male and then black male babies. What he said next was shattering. Shattering to my confidence in being a father. He ran down a list of problems our daughter might have. All the percentage chances were high. He covered blindness, deafness, physical problems and mental retardation. When he was finished I asked the only logical question left. One that seemed obvious to me.
“What are the percentages she will grow up without any problems?”
“Zero.”
Yeah, that feeling is the sledge hammer of reality swinging hard at your testicles and connecting. I remember getting physically ill.
My wife’s reliable way of educating, working with and pushing our daughter is the reason she didn’t grow up with any learning issues. It’s the reason she’s a 3.0 student. It’s the reason she gets Bs in college level classes in high school. I am convinced my wife did more for my daughter’s development as a preemie than anything in the world.
Say what you will about reliability being boring, but my wife proved to me that being reliable allows others to grow, achieve and prosper. My wife was always there.
Today’s Gift: This one is pretty obvious if you pay any attention to advertising. What is the reliable appliance company? Maytag. We don’t have a critical need for appliances, but my wife wants to redo our kitchen. I’m going to propose to her that we make it our summer project.