"I don't exactly know what I meant by that, but I meant it." - J.D. Salinger

This is just cool. That's all.

Valentine's Day is totally fake, the creation of Hallmark, florists, and 18-year old girls who want stuff. (How's that for cynical?!) But here it is, and there's no pretending it doesn't exist. I am VERY thankful that Pam and I are easy together and have never measured our relationship based on stuff we exchanged.

So work with me here. What follows makes sense, if only in what Pam says is a scary place inside my head.

My folks have made their wishes clear regarding the memorial service we'll have when they die. One of those directives is that there be no open mike or equivalent. I'm sure glad of that! When I recently learned that's what they didn't want it relieved me of a long-standing concern. What would I say??

My relationships with my mother and with my father (each distinct) are unique to the two of us. If I had to get up and talk about that I simply could not. I cannot express in words the relationship we have; I'd get it wrong and people would walk away with a false impression. I can explain my relationship with a friend, or even some relatives. But the father/son connection, and the mother/son relationship, at least in my case, is far too deep and intimate to yield to mere words. It would be an injustice to try.

That is true 100x more with regard to Pam and me. It would be something akin to sacrilege to attempt to tell you who WE are. The Apostle Paul was right (doh!) when he said it's a profound mystery (Eph. 5:32). People who observe us from the outside sometimes come to totally wrong conclusions about our relationship and think things like I'm the decider, she's totally passive and just along for the ride, I'm demanding and she's patient (OK, it's true she IS patient).... You get the drift.
We've both rec'd comments along those lines re. our move to Baker Rd. and the adoption of a rural lifestyle.

I've decided it doesn't matter what other people think about our marriage. What matters is our marriage. And because I can't explain it I'm not going to try. If people come to wrong-headed conclusions about it it's OK so long as we're good here.