What is a Wife – The Writings of Tom Grasso

Yes, some of you out there will read this and say, “someone got lucky!” Yes, even though at present I am getting yelled at for loading a dishwasher that had some clean dishes in it I would agree. I am not “getting lucky” in the deviant way some would suggest (including myself from time to time), but in the more complete sense of the phrase. I can look back on my life from my earliest memories to this very moment and simply agree, “yes, I got lucky.”

See I am certainly not perfect. I put dirty dishes in a dishwasher full of clean ones . I sometimes put whites in with darks. Sometimes I snore like a locomotive missing a piston. Sometimes I forget my underwear on the floor. I am a man, and therefore cannot make any excuses as to my imperfections. I was made divinely imperfect so that I may find someone in my life who makes each day a bit more “perfect”.

That someone is my wife. Sometimes I hate the term “my wife”. It is as if there is some sort of possession there. I have found over the years that I cannot own this woman. She carries a pit of fire in her that cannot be held for long, yet cannot be let go of. She is beautifully creative, forging the greatest beauty out of the roughest iron or at the very least will give great effort in trying. She is a soft hammer and a hard chisel, the proverbial rock and hard place. She can be as soft as a cloud and as tough as the lightning carried within it. There is no “owning” my wife, there is only a partnership that suggests “my wife” is mine because she wants to be.

And there is great glory in that from my perspective. This is how I got lucky, a woman I can only describe as fearsome allowed me into her life. I saw not only a beautiful pool in her eyes, but also my own reflections in moments so intensely personal as to effect the universe. Sometimes I liked what I saw, but mostly I recoiled from the image. Oddly enough, I found that when we see ourselves in such beautiful art one of two things can happen. Either we find that we can stand within the picture and compliment it, or we contrast with it and somehow make it less beautiful. Then we can make a decision, either we love what we see and work to make it more beautiful, or we don’t and we destroy it from within.

Of course this is to suggest that the artist herself has no input, which clearly is not the case. Our wives as artists not only hone us to magnificence but also give us the inspiration we need to shape ourselves into something that fits into the art. They provide the vision, we provide the color. Sometimes it works in reverse. Still, what is left to observe is a masterpiece that is forever in the making. I can see the results of our efforts in our children, and can look at awe at the creations that such work can provide. My children are, to me, an example of what can happen when two artists give their all to each other to create one beautiful masterpiece. Or two. Or three. It’s not about the sex, or the conception, or the birth, it’s about the continual willingness to create and work together to provide such wonders.

This is what a wife does to us. Remember folks, you don’t need to be “married” to have a wife. You simply need to have a partner in your life who is part of you. I don’t need a state contract to say Veronica is my wife, I can feel it in every cell of my being. That feeling, that testament to something indescribable, is what makes us “married”. That same feeling is what makes us so willing to become better versions of ourselves, to make that person who inspires it revel in the feeling as well. It’s a shared caress that makes us husband and wife. It’s a kiss stolen in the chaos of life that makes us one. It’s the willingness to become better for each other regardless of how perfect we believe we may be. It’s NOT just the sacrifice that makes us lovers, it’s the joy we find in making it.

Yes, “I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more” for a simple hug from my woman. I mean could anything beat the feeling I get when I get that hug? I haven’t found one. So as I am being told I have to leave (she also either keeps me on schedule or throws me wildly off it), I do so with one parting thought. A wife is someone to live and to die for. She is someone you stop a moment of inspiration for because she WILL inspire another. She is someone you listen to, long for, and dream about. In this instance, she is someone you stop proofreading for. At least that is my experience, and I hope that is shared by many others.