What valuable gift can a man not give himself?
This, my husband has answered me.
To appreciate a man takes arrival to understand why we don’t, we forget to, or utterly refuse at times.
In my over three decades of togetherness with my husband, to my thanks and relief, growth has continued to take form to its eventual full maturity.
If I were to start this with a finish, I will state that the longer I have been married, the more appreciation I have for my husband as a partner and father to my children.
There is no replacement for his role as the man in charge of our home.
Some may argue. Some may differ. Some may utterly not believe.
I get all that. Been there several times to prove otherwise.
To love. To protect.
Two my heart, my mind, my body, and my spirit looked for in a partner to lead as an example for what would become our family.
To provide?
Perhaps, and understandably so, an importance for all women, there is need for provisions to make do of wants and needs.
Hear me out when I say, however, in nearing my golden years, I have come to witness this- any man who loves and protects will work tirelessly to provide.
One can have all the means to provide as I have observed many, but to my sadness and disappointment as a mother, wife, and to add, a teacher, women and children barren from love and protection are left vulnerable for the taking of one’s soul.
The heart, the mind, the body, and the spirit are left alone to constantly fight.
To fight.
Here is where I reflect on my own growth.
To be loved, to be protected, does not always match one’s own perception.
A mother and wife at such a young age, I was still in the stages of rebellion.
Stubborn with an interesting spirit.
This is what my husband faced and although now tamed in years, and so, less frequently, still faces at times.
I don’t know when it actually happened. I cannot pinpoint the exact time. I would like to believe I grew up gradually.
In my noise, I could not hear my husband’s words. Thus, many times I perhaps was not at best to understand him.
Given my noise, I could not fully engage all of my senses. Thus, I could not hear, see, smell, taste, or feel everything he was trying to offer me.
While I can say (and, I have) that he has reciprocated the same gestures, my own accountability leaves me to face only what I fell short in doing to create a stronger foundation much earlier.
Although we started with quite a resilient mindset, seeing us only to be moving forward, stronger and better, there can be found cracks on the walls of our solid home like any other who have strived for greatest pursuit.
It is with grace we have been given opportunity to mend and fortify even more.
As I recently came across to hear Jeff Bezos stating, however, “I feel very strongly that I’ve won a lot of lotteries.”
No. Once again, not at the start, the provisions.
Love and protection.
On our first date, how he held my arm gently, but securely down as we rode on the Pirate’s Ship, I knew there sat a protective man next to me.
The first time this same man peaked his body in to a woman’s public restroom to call out my name to check in on me or held out his arm to shield me from an abrupt stop, I knew and felt in my heart that he loved me.
Still, he was in for a challenge.
My heart, my mind, my body, and my spirit, were all fearless fighters, seemingly ready to object to any opposition.
While I knew nothing less than to be true and fully trusted, I gave scorn to when questioned.
It would be as if my heart, mind, body, and spirit would stand up and speak at once, “How dare you question my integrity!”
Backing down once up was not an easy task for even my own self control.
I would become that dripping water.
No one wants to be compared to a dripping water. Still, I knew no better.
To quote in Black Panther (because I must find humor in my own ways), I would be that one to state, “I accept your challenge.”
I had gone through this training as witness to Mama endlessly standing up to Papa.
I see now that I was doing the same under my own home. To not easily back down when challenged was something I had gradually become (and became very good at).
Early in my years of marriage, I just missed one thing.
While Papa grew tired of the opposition, Mama seemingly lost respect for Papa’s surrender.
While the strength of Papa grew weaker, Mama’s spite grew stronger.
The more Papa backed down, the more it seemed Mama made a stand- on almost everything.
Mama became that dripping water that continued to drip.
In moments of reflection, I saw this as a weakness in my Papa. While he made attempts to stop the dripping, he never could seem to fix the issue.
The whole house, thus, passively allowed the noise.
While Papa never gave up on Mama to the end of his time, his ability to love and to protect, in my eyes, tired down.
His surrender came at a cost of surrendering to everything.
To love. To protect. Lost. And then, to provide- seemingly depleted along the way, too.
Perhaps my soul was fighting for the love and protection it felt to have missed for some time.
Perhaps I searched for what Papa must have had with Mama in the beginning.
Perhaps barren, I was determined to find love and protection for myself.
I was not forsaken.
In just recent years of arrival to fully grasp, it hit me. I found in my husband what Papa showed to have lost.
I had to recognize, first, I had carried on the role of a dripping water.
In light of comparison, water is an endless and multi-facet necessity.
As water, essential I am.
Water only drips to be heard so that it may be tended to. Costly is the other option.
As long as it runs pure and clean, however, there can be no other replacement.
Pure and clean is what must be maintained and retained.
What of the man who is provided such essential?
What of the man who cares for and protects what he has been provided?
Arriving to almost five decades in years, I see men of strength to desire more than love to want to protect.
The strength of a man also desires power, honor, and respect. I am going to further suggest that if, without love, the former three can easily take precedence.
Money? Money is a gateway, a channel to gaining these desires.
There is a price to what is not freely given.
You can build temples made of gold and think silver unnecessary when gold is in abundance.
You can create armies to fight for you to save your own, one artillery provided at a time.
Love, power, honor, and respect, can be all yours.
You become the admired, envied, and loathed at the same time from those who are inspired, intimated, or shamed by you.
One can trust to never lose such love, power, honor, and respect, but learn tomorrow guaranteed nothing.
That love thought to be forever walks away.
Power felt for a time, crippled.
The honor given, rescinded.
Respect, tainted irrevocably.
Rented? Leased? Or, earned, paid for, with a will and trust?
In comfort and abundance, riches and money manipulate the belief all your desires are shielded and sheltered.
If a time may arrive where affording to buy such desires is scarce or restricted, there can only be dependence with hope that grace give one or all to you.
Love.
Power.
Honor.
Respect.
I wonder how much Papa felt from Mama to have given when arriving to times he had no means or channel to buy.
Did he allow the water to just keep dripping just so he could hear it still around?
What one attribute could stand and fight to never lose any or give aide and support to gain it all back if lost?
Let there be the truest test and one word, perhaps forgotten or taken for granted, comes like the armor given you when you forget or are without one on.
Loyalty.
How does loyalty supersede love, power, honor, and respect?
True loyalty cannot be bought.
Loyalty does not give up on you.
Loyalty knows you better than most times, you know yourself.
Loyalty will stand by your side in darkness, not just light.
Loyalty will stand and fight, not run.
Loyalty will speak for you when you cannot find the words.
Loyalty will speak up to you when you need to be told.
Loyalty will move for you when you are unable.
Loyalty will cover and shield you even as you sleep.
Loyalty continues to work for you even as you rest.
Loyalty will find silence amongst the noise.
Loyalty will build heavy walls around you so you can keep your silence.
Loyalty will be your ears when you fail to hear.
Loyalty will be your eyes when you are blinded.
Loyalty will smell danger for you before the fire.
Loyalty will taste blood for you so you don’t have to.
Loyalty will feel your pains to keep you numb.
Loyalty will step back into the shadows as you beam in the light.
Loyalty helps you up and stand tall if and when you fall.
Loyalty will fall for you so you remain standing.
Loyalty may question your next move, but trust and still move with you.
Loyalty fights your battles with or without an army.
Loyalty will find most courage to stand in your way if they believe it will save you.
Loyalty will remain and stand to watch you if you shall decide to leave and walk away.
Loyalty cannot be bought.
Loyalty cannot be forced.
Loyalty cannot be taught.
Loyalty endures.
It simply is what one gives you fewest receive.
Although love, power, honor, and respect can waver throughout time in one’s life, if you shall have someone’s loyalty, you shall have the means to get everything else back.
You can have it all with one who will never give up on you.
It is the gift not all are capable to truly give in a lifetime.
It is the gift not all will have a lifetime to receive.
