The Portrait

29 years ago tomorrow, Kerry Huber against all better judgement, rescued me from bachelorhood. I knew Kerry exactly three weeks before I proposed to her. In a way, it was an arranged marriage. It came about in a rather unorthodox way. (but when have I ever been orthodox about anything?)

As he officially released me from my mission, my Stake President asked me if I would like a blessing. I'm not certain if it was a usual offer but he was my Stake President and his son was my best friend and, in high school I had spent more waking hours at his home than my own so I looked to him and his wife as secondary parents. In light of all that, I readily accepted.

During the blessing, he paused for what seemed an awfully long time. In retrospect, I now know exactly what was going on because it's happened to me since. During the course of a blessing, you're prompted to say something out of the ordinary and, for a while, you kind of have to chew on it. Like when Kerry lost her diamond bracelet, the very first really nice piece of jewelry I'd given her and, in retracing her steps, she realized it could be anywhere up to and including a garbage truck that had carried away tree clippings earlier that day.

She was inconsolable and asked me for a blessing during which I was prompted to promise her she would get it back (I normally don't involve Heavenly Father on the matter of lost jewelry but this was a very sentimental piece and my wife was crying)

Anyway, when I felt prompted to give my wife that blessing, I hemmed and hawed for a moment thinking over the rammifications. Here I was using my priesthood to promise returned jewelry to my wife. It didn't feel right....on a smaller scale, like Nephi wrestling with The Spirit over the demise of Laban.

So, when I was prompted to give that promise to my wife, I kind of backpedaled and said, in my heart, "You know, Heavenly Father, if that's how you feel about it, why don't you just tell her yourself and leave me out of the whole thing?"

"Tell her"

"Okay...but...this doesn't feel right, Heavenly Father. I'm using my priesthood here to promise a blessing to my wife and it seems kind of vain"

"Tell Her"

"Okay...but....you're SURE she's going to get it back? Because, if I promise this thing and she doesn't get it back....I'm gonna look awful fool.."

"Would you just tell her already?

So I promised my wife she would get her bracelet back.

"Now tell her again"

The next day, I walked out of the house, went straight to the garage, opened the door and looked in the bottom of the fertilizer spreader to see my wife's bracelet lying there. (whew)

Anyway...that kind of exchange must have been what was happening in President Bassett's mind while he was paused in my blessing because, the next words out of his mouth were, "Tom, not everyone has somebody that they are supposed to marry, but you do. I bless you that, when you see her, you will know it instantly"

Two years later, I was talking to my girlfriend, Lisa at institute when I looked across the room and saw Kerry. The next thing I thought was, "what am I going to tell Lisa?"

Kerry and I were engaged three weeks later and married four months later. Over the years, I have seen the wisdom of our Heavenly Father in placing the two of us together. When the school district we were in was refusing to give our special needs son the services he needed, I watched in awe as the lioness I married argued with no fewer than twelve school district officials and lawyers. At the end of three hours, they finally threw in the towel and gave us everything we were asking for.

While I was recuperating from my accident, when growing a beard was the only thing I could do by myself, she fed and dressed and bathed me for the better part of a year. She never complained once or made me feel like the service she rendered me was a burden.

Over the years, she has been my companion, my confidant, my willing scrabble partner and, when I've needed it, the thorn in my side and the boot to my rear.

Our courtship was brief and so we had to get to know each other better after we married. We are both dominant personalities and so we've had to work out many many compromises over the last three decades. Most of these have concerned my personal wardrobe choices. If she hates a tie that I love, the compromise we work out is that she tells me I can keep it and then one day, several months later, I will look through my closet and realize that the tie we argued over hasn't been seen in quite a while.

If I could change one thing about her, it would be her own self-deprication. Although I love to take pictures, my wife has never been a willing subject, telling me that she want's to get a better haircut or lose some weight first.

Every time she offers these excuses, I look at her and wonder what the heck she's talking about. She looks more beautiful today than the day we married and I realize that I cannot look at her without filtering everything I take in through the three decades of our life together. And so I wrote her this poem and, in honor of the anniversary of her agreeing to rescue me, I share it with our friends:

(I'm a little ham-fisted when it comes to poetry so all I can manage is iambic pentameter)

The Portrait

I have no portrait of my wife to place upon a wall
There's none within my wallet, to share with one and all
There lies a canvas in my heart that's stretched out through the years
and with a brush of memories, I paint her portrait there

I have so many memories, from each of them I choose
her colors vibrant and bold or soft and subtle hues
and every time I add a stroke, I glance again to see
the portrait in my heart has grown more beautiful to me

Across the altar of The Lord, her lovliness and grace
are captured in my memory, and form the portrait's face
The day that our first son was born, I watched her hold the child
and it is from that memory, I paint the portrait's smile

Each tender word, each warm caress, each moment that I prize
are captured in my memory and shines within her eyes
And every day of triumph, and those of pain and grief
adds character, and contrast, and beauty underneath.

There are no borders in my heart; no barriers, nor fences
to mark the place the portrait stops, and where my soul commences
The countenance shall never fade; the colors never set
upon this cherished rendering, that's not quite finished yet.