Unremitting Love

She’s more enchanting than a summer's day, her enduring radiance calling back the lovely April of her prime. 

Her enlivened greetings brighten the common hour. In conversation she listens more than she talks, her green eyes intense and sparkling. 

Her presence enables everyone to feel special because she believes they are. She facilitates hope for a peaceful and cultured civilization. She’s as soothing as a downy pillow. 

Her home radiates warmth and welcome. She turns a sandwich into an charming meal and makes fantastic potato soup, malted milkshakes and iced mint tea. No restaurant can outdo her elegant meals. Watching her in the kitchen warms the heart. 

You never hear her boast about her family or herself. You won’t find her discussing her accomplishments, her famous friends or her worldly travels. She avoids all things pretentious and flees ostentation. Fancy cars and gaudy excess fail to impress her.  

Born of a cooler race with distrust for sweet-faced hypocrisy she endures no evil and tolerates no lies. She tells you what she thinks in way that makes you feel good about yourself and her. When she makes a request you feel disappointed if you fail to meet her expectations. 

Her pleasing counsel, sweet to the soul and healing to the spirit, comes from a discerning heart. She avoids nagging and guards against quarrelsome words, but remains firm-footed about her convictions. 

If she can’t find anything good to say about someone, she doesn’t say anything at all. She speaks the truth from her heart, respects everyone and casts no slur on anyone. She looks for the good. She understands and forgives. 

She’s as steady as an incoming tide. Once she makes up her mind, she almost never changes it. Because our strengths are, in excess, our greatest weakness, she’s hard headed and cursed by perfectionism.

She’s intolerant of overabundant fervor and vigorous gusto. I must curb my enthusiasm for improving a story with expanded truth. Her upturned eyes tell me that my free use of gesticulation and theatrics have overextended her tolerance for my unfettered excitement.       

She covers her eyes during crucial parts of an Aggie game and at the scary parts of a movie. She fears mice and getting her finger pricked, but other than that she can withstand just about anything from man or beast. When malice attacks a loved one or friend she comes to the rescue firm-chinned and determined.

She avoids religious babble and fundamental hypocrisies, but she’s rock faithed and spiritually solid. She trusts in the Lord with all her heart and in all ways acknowledges him. 

Her actions reflect her conviction that God comes first in her life. She comforts those in trouble with the peace she herself has received from God.

She avoids foolish arguments on the mind of God. She pays no heed to religious debates that are beyond the reach of our souls. She believes that all are predestined for grace and that free will gives us the opportunity to have an abundant life filled with love, peace and joy. 

She’s centered on each day, treasures time and wastes no hour. She abhors regret and believes the future will work out the way it has been planned. 

Fifty-one years ago I was just a boy with overflowing ambition made awkward by doubt when I married her, a girl as fresh as spring blossoms possessing a wide-eyed belief in the future and me. Her love and steadiness bring out my best.