For
years, I picked on “my husband” in my columns, joking about his habits and
antics, and many women wrote to tell me how much he reminded them of the men in
their own lives. So I guess my editor’s way of thinking was right.
My
husband, however, always was pitied by men, who often addressed him as “you
poor guy.” Many also said they would
file for divorce if they were in his shoes, because it seemed as if nothing he
did was sacred…or private.
Little
did they know that my husband always enjoyed being written about in my columns.
When I would write about the dogs or someone else and not mention him for a
week or two, he’d say, “Don’t you love me any more?” And then, more often than not, he’d remind me of something embarrassing he’d done so I would write
about it.
Take,
for example, the night he woke up and thought he heard a prowler out in the
yard. Still half-asleep and wearing only his underwear, he grabbed the
ornamental sword he kept by the bed (especially for burglars) and ran outside,
where the neighbors’ motion-detector floodlight popped on and bathed him in
enough light to enable the entire neighborhood and passengers in low-flying
aircraft to see him…standing there in his BVDs and holding a sword over his
head.
I
laughed about it for days. When he saw how funny I though the incident was, he
insisted that I write about it. Thank goodness I married a man with a great
sense of humor.
Last
week, on December 13, I came home from Christmas shopping and told my husband I
was going to take the dog for a short walk. He said, “OK, but hurry back and
feed me. I’m hungry.”
I
returned 15 minutes later and found him slumped over in his chair. He passed
away two days later from a massive stroke.
His
name was Joe.
There
have been several times during the 18 years I have been writing my column when
I’ve thought I’d never be able to write anything humorous because something sad
or stressful had happened that week. But Joe would always encourage me by
saying, “You can do it. People are counting on you to make them smile and laugh
every week. And if you can make even just one person smile, then you’ve
succeeded and can feel really proud of yourself.”
After
hearing his words, no matter how depressed I was feeling at the time, I’d
manage to write something that actually did make people smile. And as an added
benefit, I discovered that writing humor turned out to be cathartic in many
ways. So I’d usually feel much better afterwards.
But
this is one situation where I know that no matter how much of a pep talk I give
myself about laughter being the best medicine, I just can’t write humor at the
present time. Therefore, I have decided
to take a leave of absence from writing this column until I can smile and feel
like my zany old self again…and then I promise I’ll be back.
Joe
would want it that way.
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| OUR WEDDING DAY, 1971 |
