Yesterday was our day to take dinner out to my Dad.
It was the day before St. Patrick’s Day, so Pam decided to plan an Irish
dinner. By 3 o’clock the kitchen was alive with activity. There would be her
famous meat loaf, with a raw sliced sliver of carrot, coin-shaped hidden inside
one serving. Whoever got the orange “coin” would be blessed with good luck
throughout the year. There would be mashed potatoes, green beans, and homemade
Irish Soda bread with raisins. For dessert she had made bright green Pistachio
pie. In honor of the day, she renamed all of these dishes to suit the occasion.
Meat loaf became “Blarney Stones,” dessert became “Shamrock Pie”. Then she went
out and bought special green shamrock paper plates to serve the pie on, along
with matching four leaf clover napkins. For Ezra she bought Irish themed
stickers featuring Snoopy and Woodstock dressed up like Leprechauns. She even
wrote his name at the top of a piece of green construction paper so he would
have a place to stick them. The dinner was a rousing success. Everyone cleaned
their plates. There were six “Blarney Stones” in the dish and only 5 of us, so
in keeping with the famous Dunnevant luck; the lucky coin will appear in dad’s
leftovers today.
As I watched Pam flitting about the kitchen
preparing this meal, it occurred to me that a life well lived is not heralded by
screaming headlines in the newspaper, rather it comes in the form of a thousand
daily graces. It doesn’t come from wearing the right clothes, living in the
right house or driving the right car, it comes from sharing your life with people
who take care of the details with tenderness, people for whom the little things
in life aren’t little at all. The “good life” is the sum total of these tender
moments. My wife’s talent for transforming the routine into something extraordinary
has made for me and our family a remarkable life. Even after nearly 30 years
together, her loving kindness still astonishes me.
Want some marital advice? Marry the right woman.
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