from Catherine Castle
Now that’s the question of the century. Sometimes you know right away with a “zing” goes the heart strings. Sometimes you don’t know until certain dramatic things happen in your lives. And sometimes true love is revealed only after the loved one is gone. I saw all three of these in the lives of my parents.
Let me tell you a story about my parents, who apparently got it right.
My parents met after WWII, right before Dad was going to enlist in the Foreign Legion. He came to visit Mom’s uncle. Mom peeked at Dad from behind a newspaper during that visit and her interest in him was obvious enough that he asked her on a date. Their courtship was a short one. They met in October and by Thanksgiving the following month they were married. All Dad’s family said, “Don’t marry him. You don’t know what you’re getting into. He drinks. He gambles. He carouses around with his brother.” But ‘Love is blind.’ And Mom didn’t listen to the naysayers. That’s the “zing” goes the heart strings moment.
The dramatic happening for my folks occurred early on in their marriage. True to the warning of his family, Dad did drink and gamble and run around with his brother, leaving Mom at home with two small children. After about two years of this kind of behavior, Mom gave Dad an ultimatum. “It’s me and your daughters or carousing with your brother. You can’t have both. Choose what you love most,” she told him. Dad chose us. He walked away from his old life and built a life around his family.
It took the remainder of their lives together to discover the last expression of love.
Dad was a meat and potatoes kind of guy. Dinner fare for us was always a meat, which ran the gamut from pickled pigs’ feet and cow brains to fried chicken and smoked pork. Some form of potatoes (usually fried) sat next to the meat platter. Then green beans and another vegetable filled out the menu. We’d often have bread, too, from sliced store-bought bread to homemade cornbread or biscuits. Dessert was rare and saved for company. Without fail, meat, potatoes, green beans and a second vegetable appeared on every dinner table.
No matter what combination of those four dishes Mom put on the dinner table, Dad ate it. He wasn’t choosy about what meat Mom served, or how the potatoes were fixed, or what alternate veggie she served beside the green beans. He ate it all, and as I remember it, with gusto. In all the years I sat at the table with them, eating Mom’s down-home meals I never once heard Dad complain about or critique Mom’s cooking. I thought he loved everything she made, even though I always didn’t.
Then, in 1987, Mom died of complications from pneumonia. After the funeral Dad was wandering around the house saying, “You girls should take this, or this. It belonged to your mom and I can’t look at it now that she’s gone.” We obliged him and took the offered items, because, as I’ve since learned, guys can’t deal with looking at stuff that belonged to their deceased wives.
When Dad walked into the pantry where Mom kept all her home-canned goods, he said, “Take all these green beans home with you.”
“I can’t take food off your table, Dad,” I protested.
“I hate green beans,” he replied.
I’m sure my mouth dropped open, because it still does when I think of this story. “But you ate them almost every night,” I said. “If you hate them why did you eat them?”
“Because your mother served them.”
For thirty-seven years and four months, my father ate a hated vegetable every day just because Mom served it. And he ate it without letting anyone at the table know he hated green beans. Now, if that isn’t true love, I don’t know what is.
Ain’t love grand?
Catherine loves to laugh at herself and loves to write comedy. Check out her award-winning romantic comedy, with a touch of drama, A Groom for Mama.
The last thing corporate-climbing Allison wants is a husband. Furious with Mama’s meddling, and a bit more interested in Jack than she wants to admit, Allison agrees to the scheme as long as Mama promises to search for a cure for her terminal illness.
A cross-country trip from Nevada to Ohio ensues, with a string of disastrous dates along the way, as the trio hunts for treatment and A Groom For Mama.
Catherine loves writing, reading, traveling, singing, watching movies, and the theatre. In the winter she loves to quilt and has a lot of UFOs (unfinished objects) in her sewing case. In the summer her favorite place to be is in her garden. She’s passionate about gardening and even won a “Best Hillside Garden” award from the local gardening club.
Learn more about Catherine Castle on her website and blog. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to check out Catherine’s Amazon author page and her Goodreads page. You can also find Catherine on Stitches Thru Time and the SMP authors blog site.
