The Mother of Re-Invention

All my friends are retiring. If I had stayed with the school system, forty years ago, I probably would have retired at fifty-five and moved to South Florida to Del Boca Vista Phase 23.

I think back to my senior year of high school when I first met my husband. He barely spoke English and worked in a gas station across the street from my dad’s hardware store. I worked in my parent’s store after school. He would have coffee with my parents while I stocked the shelves. My folks invited him for Thanksgiving dinner and he offered to teach me how to drive.

He showed up on our doorstep with a sampler of chocolate candy, a fat plastic pilgrim glued to the top. I peeled it off, put in on my night table and told my grandmother I was going to marry him…not the pilgrim…our guest.

He was everything I wanted in a boyfriend. Charming, mature, and helpful. He was lightyears away from the boys that attended school. He was also different from all the other kids that were attached to the girls in our group.

He didn’t talk sports or any of the other activities the other guys did. He worked long hours, got his hands dirty, and had a certain maturity I didn’t see in my friends.

It wasn’t until we attended a dinner party I realized something had shifted. They were sneering at him. He was not in school to be a lawyer…