Must be nice...

"It was love at first sight",  "I knew she was the one", "He fought for us", "I can't imagine life without her in it."

A.

Must be nice to sit back and watch your 12 grandchildren turn your house into a playground, screaming and sending your blood pressure up. You tell your wife not to chase after them because kids will be kids. Of course you're their favourite grandpa. It's your last daughter's wedding and she bagged a fine young man, like her two older sisters who wed before her. You hear her tell her friends on the eve of her wedding that she wanted her man to be just like you, her father- perfect.

 You pull your beautiful, incredibly 'still hot' wife to your side and whisper that you love her. You do, in fact. Despite how much she breaks your heart, you love how much she has been committed to keeping you both together. She didn't have crazy dreams, she just took care of the babies and made a few cents to buy you a tie for your birthday gift. Some years, she threw a party and everyone gushed over how adorable you both are.

B.

Must be nice to chitchat with your high school besties (your best friend has puffy eyes from crying over her latest divorce but she loves hearing about you and your sweetheart) after a couple of decades over Christmas dinner and say, "He makes me feel like the luckiest girl on Earth"; your eyes glistening as they raise their glass to you. 

Everyone uses you both as the yardstick for perfection. You've had problems, like when you had a miscarriage and cried, because you thought it was his fault when he got too busy to rub your pregnant belly every night, then you both cried and made three more children after disturbing the poor obstetrician for weeks on his home telephone.

You won at this lottery called life. The bragging rights are all yours;  you gladly take women counseling sessions in church and tell young girls to be smart, and to remain intentional about choosing right. You tell them to remain as virgins because the right man would wait. You tell wives to be necks and forget to tell them your husband never demands it from you. 

You lie to them though, because your sweetheart didn't wait for you to be "ready". You tell them it was all through prayers and believing God. You tell them to keep the faith and nothing is more beautiful than love. 

I wish you'd stop selling it to them in this manner. I wish you'd tell them they might be unlucky if they followed your advice. I wish you tell them of the drunk nights and the affairs you nearly had because you wanted something risky outside your husband's warm hugs. I wish you'd tell them to do what pleases them and enjoy what happiness is in the moment. I wish you tell them you were just lucky and you've really done nothing right. But I know you won't ever do this and would rather take it to the grave.

It really must be nice to be God's favourite. Both of you.