This is a comment by Adam D. Oglesby on the post “The Male Straitjacket“.
“I can well remember some years back when a close family member passed away unexpectedly. As far as I was concerned she was a marvelous woman, married for some forty years to the same guy.
“Theirs was not a relationship worthy of envy. I scarce saw a moment of warmth or tenderness between them. Rather than love each other in any demonstrable fashion, they seemed to have made a mutual decision to merely tolerate each other.
“When the woman died I remember the man lamenting, ‘What am I going to do now?’
“That statement encompassed everything, from getting his supper, to managing the house, to nurturing his children, to sending out Christmas cards. The man had no experience with any of life’s necessary underpinnings, those mandatory machinations spinning quietly in the shadows that—to a large extent– allowed him to excel in his career.
“The woman was everything, the powerhouse in the background.
“The man was good at one thing: He knew how to go out and scrounge out a living. But that was really the extent of it.
“The shame is, as he stood before the open gash of her grave, I doubt he had ever shown his appreciation to her.
“There may be a lesson to all of us here. If you have that good female beside you, that co-pilot, that partner in crime, that sex buddy, that confidant, that business collaborator, that life strategist, that homey and best friend–tip your hat to her.
“Don’t wait to show your appreciation only on the requisite holidays. Acknowledge her worth frequently, often and all the damn time.“
Photo credit: Flickr / L2F1
