A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. 11 Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family. She sets about her work vigorously….and her lamp does not go out at night. She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: Many women do noble things, but [to us she surpasses] them all. (Proverbs 31:10–12, 15, 17-18, 25, 27-29, NIV 1984).
My Musings – My wife Eilen and I married my sophomore year of college. She worked full-time and I part-time until I graduated. Eileen continued to work after I graduated until she eventually lost her eyesight completely. She worked in foodservices; Hardee’s, Howard Johnson restaurant, and KFC (she even met Colonel Sanders).
After her blindness she settled down as housewife and eventually mother of two. She called herself a domestic engineer. She loved baking and cooking, preparing a brand-new recipe each week that she found from listening to recipes. And she was in total command in “her” kitchen, as anyone who worked in the kitchen with her on various holidays would readily attest. I did my best to help when needed, she preferred doing things herself. One time when I was helping out, I was told I had the wrong size pan, on the wrong burner, at the wrong flame setting (yes, she preferred gas to electric stoves), with the handle pointing to the wrong side. Everything else was fine.
She was also a good home decorator. She insisted that I was color blind, which is hard to take from a blind person. One-time we were replacing our metal venetian blinds with wood ones. She was working with an interior decorator whom she had only talked to on the phone. One day the decorator called and said, “Hi Eileen, this is the blind lady.” Eileen replied, “me too.” She helped me paint walls and fences and once repainted the window frames and lattices while I was at work. All without getting any paint on the glass. She took care of all the indoor household chores, dusting, vacuuming, mopping, dishes (she refused to use the dishwasher except when we hosted holiday meals), and laundry. She kept the house spotless. Many of her friends said it was hard to sometimes to believe she was blind.
She took care of our two boys when they were young. Josh, our oldest was special needs. He never learned to walk, talk, eat or control his bladder or bowels. He was fed through a tube surgically inserted into stomach (Eileen would feed him through the tube and change the tube if needed when I was at work) and breathed through a tracheotomy (Eileen could suction out the secretions with medical equipment designed for that purpose and change out the tracheotomy device when required). She could tell when he was coming down with a bladder infection (she could smell it) and once when Joshua was in the hospital, she detected that he had been double medicated during a shift change by his behavior that the nurses and doctors had not noticed.
For our youngest son Joel, she taught him how to bake cookies and told him made up fairytales since she could not read. She knew braille, but Joel preferred the made-up stories. Once, while spending the night with the grandparents his grandma started to read him a bedtime story. Joel said, “no grandma, make up a story just like mom.” Joel has told me that he never felt that he missed out on any childhood memories on account of Eileen’s blindness.
My Advice – She was a remarkable woman to me. But to paraphrase Ted Kennedy’s eulogy to his brother Robert, “My [wife] need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what [she] was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent [wife, mother, daughter, sister and aunt]. [She] gave [me] strength in time of trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty, and sharing in time of happiness. [She] will always be by our side.” She would not have wanted to be idealized.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her…love [your] wives as [your] own bodies…and care for [her], just as Christ does the church.” (Ephesians 5:25, 28, 29, NIV 1984). For we do not know when death will separate us.
The Brew Is A Musing 