Soul Food

Michele Marr, For the Independent

Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud;

love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a

record of wrongs, love is eternal.

-- 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

Sooner or later, as Valentine’s Day approaches each year, someone is

bound to ask me the question: How did Michael propose to you?

Then I have to tell them that I’m not exactly sure he did.

He did of course. But not in the way people mean when they ask that

question. He didn’t take me to dinner at a swank restaurant. He didn’t

get down on his knees and spring a ring on me. He didn’t have “Will you

marry me?” written in the clouds or posted on a rented billboard for all

of Orange County to see.

Thank goodness. Ritzy restaurants aren’t my first choice for dining

out. My favorite place to celebrate, birthday, anniversary or New Year,

is the Harbor House in Sunset Beach. It’s got a coffee shop menu and a

few good booths we can get lost in. And I don’t have to get dressed up.

Flamboyant displays of affection -- skywriting and billboard messages

qualify -- truly fluster me. Surprises, like an expensive ring I didn’t

pick out myself -- make me nervous. So the way my husband proposed, if

propose is what he did, said in a big way that he knew me awfully well.

He was getting ready to leave on a business trip. He put a fistful of

bills in my hand and told me to go buy a ring I liked and that we’d talk

about a date when he got back a couple weeks later.

On a romance-o-meter, if the scale is 0 to 100, this route to

engagement puts us, I realize, at about 3. At least that’s what I gather

from the reactions I get when I tell people the story. The look in their

eyes is a mix of pity and disbelief.

But if my husband fell short on the proposal, he has plenty made up

for it in the marriage. I know I got the better part of the deal. Like

Mary Wells said in that song of my youth, “I’m stuck like glue to my

guy.”

On Valentine’s Day you may not find a bunch of roses or boxes of

chocolate in heart-shaped boxes with bows and lace at my place. Some

years you might. It’s not that we don’t like roses or chocolate. Oh, we

do!

It’s just that Valentine’s Day reminds me of something my grandmother

once said about overeating at Thanksgiving and Christmas: It’s not what

you eat between Thanksgiving and Christmas that makes you fat; it’s what

you eat between Christmas and Thanksgiving.

That’s how I feel about Valentine’s Day. For what it’s worth, the day

is great. But a day a year of a dozen roses, a box of chocolates and a

$200 dinner is not love. Love is made of what happens during all those

days from one Valentine’s Day to the next.

One of the greatest gifts my husband has given me in our marriage is

the wisdom that love is not, like Hollywood once told us, never having to

say you’re sorry. He has taught me that love is, instead, never having to

be selfish and that being selfish is a choice. He has taught me, not by

telling me, but by his actions.

My husband shares well. Whatever is his is also mine. He is generous

with praise and affection. He thinks I shine in everything I do. He is as

likely to tell me I’m beautiful when I am wearing sweats, my hair is

dirty and garden mud is smeared on my face as when I am dressed to the

nines. I always drive the newer car.

It’s a rare day that I don’t feel his arms wrap around my waist and

hear him say, “Have I told lately how much I love you?” My husband is

much better at love than I am, and he has given me the gift of a lifetime

to get better at it.

The only claim I can lay to my good fortune is picking out my rings.

They are a gorgeous, antique, yellow gold and platinum set I found at the

Whistle Stop on Main Street in Garden Grove. I showed the owner a photo

of what I was looking for and he brought them right out of a safe for me.

He said they came with a lifetime guarantee -- for the marriage. I

cherish the blessings of wearing these rings.

At my place, every day is Valentine’s Day. I hope it is at yours,

too.* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer and graphic designer from

Huntington Beach. She has been interested in religion and ethics for as

long as she can remember. She can be reached at o7

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