ON HER DEATHBED - WHAT SHE TOLD ME

She didn't know she was going, neither did I at that moment, so we talked freely.
     " You know, if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't have worried so much about my weight, you know,......my shape. I would have eaten more ice cream, and less card board crackers." Then she laughed.
     " I made a lot of mistakes," I said, " and I was always haunted by a lot of them. Hauling a lot of regret around." She said - oh, I don't, I never did.
     I always forgave myself for my own stupidity. Never did those things again, never tried to hurt anyone else, cause I felt lousy about it. That was the hardest thing, she told me.
     You always feel lousy about yourself.
     The nurse came by and wheeled her over to X-ray and we chatted about things on the way down and back. The nurse said, " you two are amazing, everybody on the floor are talking about you."
     Jan said " why' that?"  The nurse said that there was so much positiveness coming out of the two of us, everyone wanted to drop by and talk to us. " haven't you noticed everyone in the floor has dropped by?" she said.
     Jan said, " we get that a lot. Three hours after her X-ray, back in the room, she asked if I had fed the dog, as we held hands, I kissed her as she rolled over in the bed and peacefully died at 55.
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" DO IT AGAIN !, only, this time, don't be such a gentleman !!"

There are only things guys can say to each other that they can never say to women. That's one of them. ( It actually happened to me)
     For decades, women have complained about men being quiet, locked up, silent, expressionless for keeping their emotions out of the relationship.
    Do you know what that phrase does to a man when his lover whispers that in his ear? Understand how that would shake him up? Question the very core of his manliness? Question the essence of his role as lover?
    Are you willing to listen to him discuss that with YOU?......I don't think so.
    It has only been in the last thirty to forty years that I've noticed women lose the delicate femininity, tact and diplomacy that they had 'back in the day,' and now acquired a sledge hammer delivery of Slugger the Wharf Rat in their relationships with boyfriends and husbands. Yelling, hitting, shoving and coarse dialogue between men and women fills the air now.
    Filthy language coming from both sides of the bed, often in front of the kids, now fills the home, car, and front yard.
    Making Love has been replaced with " jumping her bones" or street slang like " DOING HER." Sexual relations between young women and men seems to have been reduced to automobile lube jobs at the Octopus Car Wash.
    The 21st Century young man's quest for the perfect marriage now must consist of corralling someone young lady fresh off the back of a motorcycle, hopefully not to laden with tattoos and a long list of motorcycle boyfriends, and settling down.
   

Any hope of marrying a virgin bride hauling her off to a picket fence farm and deflowering her on the first night is as unrealistic as an honest used car salesman.
    Such is our culture in America as we wend our way deeper into a fastly deteriorating 21st Century.
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