One of my current newspaper columns
Three Little Words
by Ramon Presson
While there was a delay
up ahead at the counter
I offered the lady in front of me a spare
copy of a 30% Off coupon.
She looked at the coupon and then back
at me while her face imitated a sunrise.
“Oooh, I love you,” she said.
I wish years ago I had known it was this easy.
Decades now lost, invested in offering
attention and affection, the currency of
quality time spent along with kind deeds,
thoughtful questions, interest in the answers,
romantic poems handwritten in calligraphy,
candles and arranging moonlight to
hit the window just so,
miles upon miles of garden walks,
handfuls of fresh cut flowers,
picnics with expensive cabernet,
four seasons of conversation
and now, only now, do I learn
that a bookstore coupon offering
a third off the highest priced item was
all that was needed.
Of course, my poem above is tongue-in-cheek, an exagerrated (and untrue) pronouncement that love requires very little expression in order to be convincing. Authentic love doesn’t look for loopholes and discounts. It doesn’t seek and settle for minimum effort in the vein of “What’s the lowest grade I can make on this exam and still pass the course?” To the man who furrowed his brow in rows deep enough to plant seeds and said, “Why do I have to tell her I love her?” I wanted to reply, “Why does she have to refrain from poisoning your food?” Instead I made my stunned silence appear as a pregnant pause that could give birth to him answering his own question. He didn’t.
As a counselor I am often amazed by spouses who treat marriage as though it were a government job in Cuba, where according to Cuban officials just showing up is enough to keep your job. I’m not suggesting that we constantly have to perform, jumping through flaming hoops like circus dogs or juggling swords while riding a unicycle on the high wire. But authentic love seeks opportunities to care; it welcomes chances to delight. Marriage is not a cactus.
A few years ago a cheap cactus became mine after an impulse buy at Publix. I don’t have a green thumb. I’ve managed to kill silk plants. I set the cactus atop a cluttered book shelf near a window in my study. About a month later I suddenly remembered I had the cactus and actually checked on it, expecting to see it drooping like a willow. On the contrary, it looked green and as succulent as the day I brought it home. However, it was less forgiving of subsequent months of neglect and was ultimately deemed beyond reviving. Neither marriage nor parenting is a cactus designed to thrive despite minimal attention and care. Close relationships are more like a flower bed that requires a thoughtful gardener.
I know of a husband who has for years not given gifts to his wife for Valentine’s Day, her birthday, or their anniversary. His reasoning: I’m just not a gift-giver. I couldn’t pull the legs off that excuse and it be any more lame. I know of another husband who tells his wife he loves her and compliments her appearance but undermines that admirable effort by regularly burying her under an avalanche of raging profanity. And he wonders why she doesn’t feel loved. Here’s something to keep in mind lest your words contradict themselves or your actions impeach your words: Regardless of how sweet the iced tea, battery acid always gives it a bitter taste.
---rLp--
Comments