...anymore", as the song of Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond goes. Seventeen years of togetherness and the only memory I have of him giving me flowers was when he came to see me after class on an ordinary day on my 4th year in college. They were the loveliest blooms... if only he took them out - from his duffel bag! Two dozens of roses all wrapped and ribboned...stems pointing out - from his duffel bag! And to add more insult to such gore (Who stashes roses upside down, anyway?!...in a duffel bag!), a classmate exclaims, "Is that for Rose?" I swear, he looked like wanting to zap his way out of the scene more than giving me that bouquet. It was too life changing for both of us that I end up wanting to relive the memory and him not bringing me flowers...anymore.
We are not a typical couple. We adhere to one another because our relationship is like those magnets that you could only put together on opposite polarities. Do you remember the scene in Shrek 1 where Fiona asks "What kind of knight are you?", my husband knows the next line by heart and replies in unison with the ogre, "One of a kind." Yes he is, because beyond my surreal perceptions, my "man" has lived life's grand and grotesque ways with me all within the sphere of reality.
Looking past the flowers, my marriage rewarded me with a garden whose blooms were ever constant like the love I received everyday. The means and ways of affection were not glaring as if you could single out one incident and call that "love" in its entirety. It was rather the bits and pieces of what initially I am incognizant of, the times of testing which tarried on like forever, and our personal irregularities that we work on smoothing out to fit each other. We constantly helped each other, moved in one direction yet we never lost the importance of our individuality. We made an identity as a couple and as separate beings.
Looking past the man, I see a soul made wise by his Creator. He is not a mere provider of what's tangible and passing because he knows that no bag or ring or flower can ever adorn the wife he loves. His children will look at his legacy by living the same righteous life he has, not measured by things that are inheritable. I respect his decisions without any tint of doubt in his capacity because his love transcends his concern for himself. It embraced me and our children.
So much for that song. The couple conversing through the lyrics "drifted apart" anyway. Looking past myself, I have the loveliest memories of the flowers I wanted, married the man who attempted to give them in the most special way he can, and he never stops giving me the best he could offer...himself.
