Icing On The Cake

Recently, a very good friend (Luke) suggested that I blog about my life with Minor and the kind of man and husband he is to me. Minor is the sort of guy that most people (all except my best friends) don't notice, but he is the one that makes all the difference in my life.

I have been tremendously lucky in love. My parents loved me as well as my friends and relatives. There have even been a few people that loved me that I didn't love back. I have always been loved and protected by a man, having moved from my parent's home into my husband's home. I've truly been blessed and I don't take it lightly.

I was 21 years old when I first met Minor. He had recently come home from the military, having served in the USAF for 4 years in Viet Nam. Minor was working with his Dad at the family owned hardware store. A girlfriend of mine introduced us at the store one day and I remember seeing him standing there looking at me and smiling. As I looked back at him, I wondered to myself if he was the man I would marry. Could it have been something in the way he looked at me that made me think that? I really don't know why I wondered it, but it just popped into my head at that very moment.

Several days later, we saw each other by chance at a softball game. It was just beginning to rain and since I had an umbrella, Minor sat under my umbrella with me. He walked me to my car afterwards although he didn't give me a kiss. He kept me waiting for that. He asked me out to dinner and a movie on the weekend and I accepted. Things began to get more and more serious as we spent more and more time together. He was wonderful to me.

By the time six months had passed, we had become very very close and spent all of our time outside of work together. Minor was so good to me. He would turn heaven and earth for me and he let it be known. It wasn't all about showering me with gifts of flowers, candy, jewelry, and trips. It was about how he treated me. Love, honor, and respect. Never jealous or mean spirited. No one had EVER treated me so well in my entire life. He never spoke a harsh word to me. He put me above everything else in his life. It was all about me and whatever made me happy. And happiness to me was being loved and cared for by him.

No guess to anyone, I wanted to marry him. I remembered something my Mama had told me once. "If you want someone bad enough, you can have them. It's up to you." That's all I needed to know.

Within a couple of weeks, Minor did indeed, ask me to marry him. He got down on bended knee and proposed "old fashioned" like and then he asked my Daddy if he could marry me. It's just the way he is.

It's been 32 years and we are even more in love today than we were back then. We have surely been through some tough years with inlaws and outlaws, with teenagers and career changes. Some years have been leaner than others. But through each and every problem, we faced it head on together and we still do. We've made some wrong decisions and we've made some right ones, but we did it together and never blamed the other if things didn't work the way we had planned it.

Minor has remained steadfast and continues to treat me even better today than he did years ago. He is a gentleman in every sense of the word. He loves and respects me far beyond my expectations. His health has not been good for the last 15 years, although he would not ever complain or allow anyone to feel sympathy for him. He is a good husband and father and I am so lucky to have him. I'll never take it for granted. Each new day with him is a blessing to me.

If someone were to ask me what it takes to have a long loving marriage, I would say, "Love, honor, respect, commitment, and honesty. Throw in really good sex, and it's icing on the cake."

I believe that we can have many soul mates. I also believe they can be in the form of a friend or a lover. Minor is my soul mate and I am his. We will find each other on the other side and that's comforting to me.