For Thursday, Sept. 25, 1997 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 673 words

My wife

My wife…despite all of my inadequacies, weaknesses, frailties, faults, faux pas, oversights, errors and irregularities…I still love her.

Despite my crude habits, my frequent functions, my mutable hygiene, my sporadic shavings, my missing combs and clashing clothes, I still think she is the fairest creature on the terra firma.

Regardless of my oblivious, unromantic, banal, churlish daily routines, I admire her zest and vitality.

Boneheaded and spineless, thick-skinned and callous, hard-hearted with halitosis, I marvel at her gentility.

Even though she has to cook, clean, sort the mail and pay the bills while I make cool PowerPoint presentations and reheat Chinese food, I adore her.

It makes no difference that she keeps all the plants alive and takes the pets to the vet. I care for her. No matter how badly I behave at parties, how often I fall asleep at her parents’ house, or how many messages I forget to give her, I think she is special.

Even as she arranges mountains of folded underwear, foothills of sock balls, and stratified towers of towels, I gaze at her from the couch, and I understand, and it’s all right with me. My love is unconditional.

Sometimes when we are out at the park and she’s pushing me on my bicycle up the hill, I think to myself, "Gestures are evanescent. Our love goes deeper and wider than that. Our love is from the soul. Our love is greater than effort." We stop. She gives me water. I let her drink first, because that’s the kind of guy I am.

Another time it was Tuesday. I was holding the lamp for her as she changed the oil in my van. I remember the lamp handle was hot and sticky, and I was sitting funny on my pillow. Just as I handed her the correct wrench this time, she turned from under the car and looked me in the eyes. "Do you love me?" she asked. A spot of oil dripped on the ridges between her upper lip and her nose.

"Of course I do," I said. And to prove it I looked sincere. Then I got a better idea. I handed her the lamp and ran out back to pick her a rose from her garden. Hmm. What color? I couldn’t decide. When I got back she had finished the tune-up, and was on her knees mopping up several quarts of spilled oil. I gave her the rose, and without waiting to be kissed, ran inside to warm up the television. And yet I love her.

‘Twas Christmas. She was stacking wood in the yard. I was sorting my new clipart. She yelled out once again for an umbrella. "Oh, yeah," I said, springing dutifully from my chair. Let’s see. Where is it?" I stood in the hall and looked around.

My resources exhausted, I came to the screen door, careful not to get my socks wet, and called out to her. "I can’t find it."

She came in and found the umbrella. It was right where I’d left it, out in the garage, behind some tires, covered up with bags of aluminum cans I’d been meaning to crush. Before going back into the storm, to show her love for me, she crushed all the cans herself, using both feet.

I, in turn, was big-hearted enough to share the redemption money with her. When she dropped off the cans, I asked her to buy me some spicy buffalo wings from KFC on the way home and keep the change.

What is it about her that draws me? What is that indescribable quality, that unnamable amenity? I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s something raw and pure. It’s something primeval. Whatever it is, it has allowed me to see past all my failed opportunities to show affection, past all my missed sunsets and Sunday teas, beyond all the missed birthdays and Mother’s days and anniversaries, to the pure white and eternal light of everlasting love.

I love her in spite of it all.