Giving Bev up for Lent?

Dear Blog Reader

I hope this finds you doing well. It is late Saturday night and I am sitting here in the glow of my iPad looking at an app generated icon of a jet that is carrying the lovely Beverly back to Indiana. She is currently over the Atlantic Ocean and should be winging her way into the Indianapolis Airport around 1:00 p.m. tomorrow.  I do not recommend giving your wife up for Lent. I know what you are thinking. "Don't be dramatic Roger. Bev has been gone for only 10 days. Lent is 40 days." Sorry my dear blog reader. It is you who have miscalculated. When you are dealing with a woman of unsurpassed beauty, kindness, gentility, and grace, the distress and longing are four times greater than for a woman of more humble circumstances. It is kinda like dog years only different.

I have been busily cleaning the house, de-nesting the Oreo gorged ants from Bev's side of the bed, cutting the grass, folding the clothes; generally getting the world back into shape and out of the drinking beer and eating Oreos mode (see last week’s blog for an explanation.

One particular clean up task has provided a particular challenge. Without Bev in bed with me, defining the far edge of the bed, valiantly maintaining her hold on her edge of the blankets, the blankets have turned into a wadded up tangle that could not possibly keep me warm unless I went completely fetal; which defeats the purpose of sleeping single in a double bed. Staying warm was a huge challenge this week because some of us (you) refused to listen to our betters and elders and took off the flannel sheets. Those 80 degree days coaxed off our flannels and coaxed out the apple and pear blossoms. Looks like we all paid for our lack of honor and respect for those whose wisdom has been bought by the experiences of a lifetime. In spite of the challenges provided by cold temperatures and uneven blanket coverage, I utilized the same coping mechanisms described last week and found a good use for all of those dirty clothes.

As with many religious experiences, I have received many epiphanies during this Lenten exercise. For instance, I have found that Bev's carbon footprint is rather large. When Bev is here, we have four loads of laundry to do. Today, I only had two loads. Looking at the credit card statement, I have found that we spent half as much on gasoline. Its a small thing but Bev’s trip may be a start to solving the energy crisis. Usually there are two bags of trash and two bowls of compost, this week, only one of each. Finally, I made a big bowl of chili on Monday, and it has lasted for an entire week. Since the kids have gone to college, Bev and I have had to adjust all of our cooking practices. I make a big crockpot meal on Monday. We eat on it through Thursday; leftovers for lunches, a few side dishes for variety in the evening. Then on Thursday night, Bev whips up something delicious that we work on throughout the weekend.

Bev was gone and only one batch of chili was needed. (On a side note surrounding an entire batch of chili, if a guy farts really loud in an empty house will any one hear it and congratulate him. No, but there would have been no congratulations if Bev was home either; so that’s a wash.) Bev was gone and the Sharritt household's carbon footprint was cut in half. Is it any wonder that there are people in the world who think that there are too many people in the world? To my mind, they are wrong headed. I have always found it curious that they never offer to be the first to volunteer to make a deposit in that carbon footprint savings bank.

I had another really big epiphany during Bev’s absence. I have a new found respect and empathy for those who are single. Also my respect for single parents is over the moon. It is a lot of work to do both the laundry and the yard; to do both the shopping and cooking. In order to get everything done last week, I had to give up on average an hour of sleep a night, and I lost 2 hours of bike riding during the week. I don’t know how you do it.

As this epiphany was coming into focus, I was reminded over and over what two wise men once told me.  The first, a good friend of the family, said that he was trying to convince his son, who was having marriage trouble, that he would spend ½ the energy finding a way to liking his wife again as he would working out all of the complications that divorce would cause. He said “I am happily remarried. I get along with my ex; she gets along with me and likes my wife, and still the complications of that decision are twice as messy than it would be if I had just learned to like my 1^st wife again.”

The second wise man was C.S. Lewis, in the Four Loves (I think). He stated that today we get married for Eros, the first love. We have forgotten one of the main purposes of marriage and that was to find a helpmate.  He went as far as to say that if two people entered into marriage only to be helpmates they would be further along and happier than two people who married for Eros and never became helpmates.

When I read that in my early twenties while dating the smokin hot Beverly, I thought yeah right. No one gets married just to be a helpmate. I probably thought that is was unchristian. The only Love God endorsed for marriage was Eros. I am not even sure that I knew how to be a helpmate then. Actually, I am sure that I didn’t know. I know that is the case because there were a lot of tears and arguments as Bev and I learned the practice of helping our mate.

Somehow over the course of nearly 27 years, we struggled and got to that place. My helpmate is back and she is still smokin hot actually more so because we are helpmates.

Who knew that you could gain such clarity by drinking beer and eating Oreos during Lent?

Take care,

Roger