My goal this semester was to increase my communication skills with my wife. Because of the needs of our aging parents, I live with my father and my wife lives in our family home in a town about 20 miles away. My father needs daily guidance and her mom needs physical assistance. My goal then was to see if I could increase our communications and intimacy using texting, voice calls, weekly visits, and sharing the poetry I write.
Take a walk down memory lane with me today.
My parents have always been very central to my very soul even through the many decades I was angry about the way they raised me the first three years of my life. I used to borrow my mom’s van when I would make weekly trips to Wyoming repairing big-screen TVs in people’s homes. I would play this song for hours on her cassette deck. I selected my wife based on the relationship she would build with my family. My wife and my sister became best friends while I was courting my wife. Today they run a day-care center together.
"I was standing at the counter
I was waiting for the changeWhen I heard that old familiar music start
It was like a lighted match had been tossed into my soul
It was like a dam had broken in my heart
After taking every detour
Gettin' lost and losin' track
So that even if I wanted I could not find my way back
After driving out the memory
Of the way, things might have been
After I'd forgotten all about us
The song remembers when”
My wife and I listened to this song a great deal when we were first married. I sent her this link one morning to remind her of my love for her and the life we built together.
“And time stood still and love was all we knew
You were the first, so was I
We made love and then you cried
Remember when”
Alan Jackson "Remember When"
I wrote this poem for one of my English classes last year. It is about the first time my wife and I made love on our second day of married life. The day we were married was a busy day. My wife planned, decorated, and hosted her own wedding reception so by the time we made it to the hotel room that night she was very tired. We made that first night a pajama night. The second day was in our apartment where her family and friends have helped her move her stuff the previous week including her king-size water bed. We had spent that Sunday visiting my sister and blessing her first son Fridy Leishman. We have never had a honeymoon, life just got to busy. That night she escorted me to the bridal chamber and ask me to help her make a baby.
On making a baby ...
She said.
It was not the first night,
But the second.
The first had been a pajama night.
Still, he had not slept with a woman,
Except for momma, her momma, or an aunt.
The first day was a busy day,
The wedding breakfast,
Temple ceremony, when he nearly fainted, and the wedding reception.
So, the first night was a pajama night.
She was the first to kiss him,
Except for momma.
That second night, they did try, to make a baby.
Little did they know, He could never create new life.
Still, they loved to try.
The babies did come, send from another who loved them all.
He so loved his Eve.
So times seam tough and life is a struggle,
Still, he knows she was the first and will remain the only,
To ask him, to help her, to make a baby.
http://www.mymuzes.org/2017/08/on-making-baby.html
My wife and her mom have always seemed to be more sisters than mother and daughter. I wonder what their relationship had been like before they were born. My wife was 29 when we married and she had a brother and sister young enough to be her children. She was living at home when we married. she helping her mom to raise these children. When we found out I was not able to create new life we thought we would help her mom with these children and borrow the nieces and nephews on weekends. My wife started a daycare center in our hope to help with the baby’s pains. My wife’s sister chose to become our handmaiden and create two children for us to share. I have taught my children of Nancy’s love for them. The choice she made to create their life and how they need to honor her choice. They were never a mistake or a problem to be solved.
The Babies they raised together
Then mother, and daughter.
The babies, then they raised, together.
Unmarried she was and living at home.
Helping her mom with the babies.
Born when out of high school, she was.
Young enough, they were.
They could have been, her children.
Then the young man along came he.
Too young for her was he,
she then 30 and he is 25.
This then the cradle, she robbed.
Then the small house, in the center of town.
It was her grandmother's house, the first they bought,
together.
Then no babies came, to them,
infertile was he, failed her request,
to help make a baby.
Then the daycare center, in their home,
more babies then come, to raise.
Her sister, fertile was she.
This then her gift, a baby, to them.
This then their baby to raise together.
Her mother received a gift, two babies,
from her daughters.
This then more babies, to raise, together.
These babies, siblings would be.
One home, two houses, and three babies to share.
Then later, one final gift, this baby,
to them, this day.
This then the babies, they raised together.
I wanted you to this picture, the joy in my children’s lives. If you knew Ashley’s and Cody’s history you would wonder how she grew to love and forgive him. He spent a few years in reform school for the mistakes he made with his sister’s. When you walk into a courtroom and participate in prosecution and then purchase a van so can visit that a boy, that should have been your first son, you learn the real power of love and forgiveness.
This then the drive
Nearly grown now, is he?
He is tall.
He is smart.
One of the babies, we raised, together.
But the choices, he made, what of the choices.
He is not what he did, he is one of the babies.
So a used van, I buy, to take them, for a visit.
This then four hours, we will drive, one way.
In the van, my wife and I will sit,
while mom and dad visit with the baby,
now a young man.
I hold a prayer, that is all I can hold.
No influence have, I over this baby.
All I have is my love.
He could have been my first baby,
But grandpa loved him first.
So all I have is my prayer and hope.
A hope that he will become more then he did.
More than he is, now.
This crime, this thing, forgiveness will then come.
For to love is the only choice I have, today.
To choose any other is to damage my soul.
So I will love the boy I have no influence over,
and I will cherish this memory, we make today.
So, you ask how is Bonnie and my relationship, today, I visited her this weekend to again ask this question. Al least twice a week I ask her if we are good and is she happy. She reassures me that we are good and that she loves me, still. It seems like we are both two great suns orbiting one great planet. This planet represents our parents and our children. This is the poem I wrote this weekend and shared with the wife yesterday.
on two great suns
Two great suns, once there were.
once in orbit near a great sphere,
Attracted they were one to another.
This then what of the attraction.
Little in common had they then,
even less now so they find.
This attraction what does, it hold?
This distance required, as the sun's glow brighter,
a greater distance, in their orbit sphere.
This the fear then he feels,
that destruction may come,
at a smaller orbit, as their strength and bond
glow brighter.
Daily he checks, this then the dance.
Weaving in and out, each other's sphere.
This many years now, then have they danced.
The choice than to continue, this covenant path.
#Note this paper was written entirely today for this class. The poems and videos were preexisting by I wrote the paper entirely today in one sitting
