Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 13, 1994 TAG: 9402110024
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Elizabeth Obenshain
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Only a few months into married life, we moved in with my father, and more quickly than we'd ever thought, we smoothed into one combined household.
It's not my sunny disposition that's responsible, that's for sure. There are those days when I come home from work that my grumpiness level would make me a good roommate for Tonya Harding.
No, it's the kindness and restraint shown by the men in the house that has eased us into a comfortable family again.
I should have known. My father has always had a lot of wisdom and gentlemanly, if gruff, grace.
And my husband? Longtime friends and family, formerly my best fans, quickly deserted my side after meeting my husband.
"So you're the lucky man" faded into the ozone after even a short visit. Instead, by the end of the evening they would turn to me as they went out the door and announce for all to hear, "Aren't you lucky."
Even my aunts, not known for being pushovers, caved in and have begun emphasizing - whenever my husband isn't along - just how fortunate I was to find someone who oddly enough enjoys putting up with me and my father.
Actually, my father was the toughest one to bring round.
There was that introductory dinner where he pointed his dinner knife and lectured this 54-year-old, balding suitor with a brusque "Young man, you and I are going to have a difference of opinion . . . " as we discussed that always hotly controversial topic of soil science.
But even that gave way under humor and quiet kindness.
Once we moved in, those two would sit perch in the kitchen as I'd cook, talking about tractors and saws and amps and watts and their mutual fascination with the weather.
I might as well have been a fly on the wall
There's only one downside to this bliss and universal goodwill.
What's a Southern family to do if they don't have a worthless inlaw to talk about?
My husband has deprived my aunts and father and cousins of that favorite pastime at family gatherings. They can't huddle to whisper: "Isn't it a shame about Betty's shiftless husband. And she's such a NICE girl."
Luckily, there's the fourth member of the household. There's Bruce.
My father meets me at the back door when I straggle in from work shaking his head at such profound laziness in a housefull of workaholics.
"He hasn't done a thing all day. He's done nothing but lie upstairs in that bed and sleep."
Once or twice, Bruce has even plopped down in front of the TV in the patriarch's chair - a very, very bad move.
My father's normal 30-second phone conversations with long-distance relatives have stretched into actual minutes as he details Bruce's shortcomings and the way he has begun ordering everyone around in the house.
Bruce also has started putting on weight - too much food and too little exercise during the cold winter months.
But there's hope for harmony in our house as spring approaches.
There was a dead mouse on the front porch the other day.
"Don't move it until Papa sees it!" I told my husband.
There's hope now that even Bruce may redeem himself in the patriarch's eyes.
Tomorrow, I'll buy some of those Valentine cakes for us at Our Daily Bread and a can of Sheba gourmet catfood for Bruce, and we'll all celebrate.
It just goes to show there are many different kinds of love you can celebrate. They might look strange on a Hallmark card, but they gladden our lives just the same.
by CNB