“He who finds a wife finds a good thing” (Proverbs 18:22).
My friend Dr. Fred Luter, pastor of New Orleans’ Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, has an interesting way of introducing his beloved Elizabeth from the pulpit. He calls her “the love of my life, the apple of my eye, my prime rib, my good thing!”
Elizabeth has heard all that only a few thousand times, but she beams each time, as the congregation laughs and applauds.
My dad, Carl J. McKeever, who loved mom, Lois Kilgore McKeever, every day of his life, would say, “My rib is the best bone in my body.”
When the great C.S. Lewis married Joy Davidman, she moved into his house near Oxford and looked around. His home, called “The Kilns,” hadn’t been redecorated in decades. “The walls and carpets are full of holes,” Joy wrote. “The carpets are tattered rags.” She feared that moving the bookcases might cause the walls to cave in.
Joy was soon bringing in decorators and workmen and turning that pile of rubble into a home worthy of its distinguished resident.
Who can calculate the worth of a good wife?
I was thinking this week about this.
My friend Randy is burying his wonderful wife of 53 years today. I participated in Charlene’s funeral on Monday, and they were transporting her body to Florida for burial. My heart goes out to Randy and his family. This distraught husband has some lonely and tearful days and nights ahead, and there is nothing to do but to go through them.
His big house will have never seemed so huge. And so empty.
Yesterday, I saw a dermatologist. I told him, “I don’t have any particular reason for coming except I no longer have anyone to spot something on my back or neck and tell me I should see a doctor about that.” I said, “Would you mind looking me over?”
Two years ago, I had skin cancer and surgery, so I’m vulnerable. The doctor spotted a pink area above one eyebrow. “We’ll keep an eye on that.” I’m to return in six months.
They say widowers and other single men live shorter lives than married men. If that’s the case, I think I know why. A wife will see that a man eats right, and that he sees his doctors as necessary.
I’m still working on eating right. Today, among other things, I’ve eaten a banana, a peach, blueberries, strawberries and an apple; how’s that? I’m taking my vitamins and such, but I’ve done that for years on my own.
And, in the five months-plus since Margaret left, I’ve had a colonoscopy and made appointments with the dermatologist and the optometrist, whose appointment is next week.
