”Hey crazy!” my wife says every time she answers the phone. ”Hey, babe,” I reply. ”What you doing?” she says. ”Nothing. Chilling. Studying. And getting some things done,” I say. Then she’ll drift off and start singing a song. Sometimes I just listen as the melody tingles in my ear. When she returns from her moment of bliss, she says again, ”How you doing?” Frustrated because she just asked me that, I don’t want to answer. But really, I do. ”I’m fine, babe,” I say. Then I smile.
My wife is a bugaboo. But she does it out of love. She’s adamant about making sure her love is felt and known. I’m nagged by it sometimes, but not really. I like it. She makes me feel so secure with her love. And over time I realized her bugabooing makes me happy.
It makes me happy because she doesn’t have to love me. I’m a prisoner. People hate us. Some people call us the scum of the earth. Or the worst of the worst. But then there are people out there who have kind hearts. They won’t let rumor, gossip, or accusation turn their hearts cold. The humanity in them lets them see the humanity in others; it lets them hear the other side of the story. And that’s my wife. A kindhearted human being. And so, I love that about her.
But what I love about her the most is her willingness to love in the first place. She’s been hurt in the past. Life and Men haven’t been so kind to her. Yet she is strong. Her name and image belong in the dictionary beside the words ”Resilience,” ”Incredible,” and ”Gracious.” She is one of the strongest women I’ve ever encountered.
When I think about the strongest women in the world, I think about her. Not because she can lift 500-pound weights over her head, but because she is a single Mom with four kids, a full-time job while Door Dashing on the weekend, and with a will made of steel designed so she makes sure she provides for her kids. And with all that on her plate she still finds time for me. Wow. If I was to detail all her struggles, the world would march in her honor.
And after her honorary march, she deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for all her selfless acts. For example, she works at a hospital. She worked through the entire pandemic. She helped save lives while she risked her own. And every day when she got off work, she had to go home to her kids and make sure they didn’t get infected. I watched her be so careful. She did everything right. When she got home, she’d undress before she went into the house so her clothes could be sanitized. And after placing her clothes in a safe place to be washed, she’d go directly to the shower to wash off every foreign particle she could. She cleaned everything she touched. And she did all this so she could protect her kids.
Her kids are her world. She made them with love, and she raises them with the same thing. She makes sure they eat before she does. And she makes sure they receive their education. Whatever she can do to make sure they’re okay, she does. She strives to make sure her family is stable and secure even if she must sacrifice her peace.
And Lord knows it’s been hard for her to find peace. She works all day saving lives and sometimes has to watch people die. Then when she returns home, she works for the rest of the day to make sure the house is cleaned, and the kids are fed. Sometimes I’d tell her, ”Babe, get some rest.” But she’d say, ”Babe, I can’t. I have to make sure everybody is alright.” I can never respond. It was true. She had to be a Super Woman.
But she is a Super Woman who deserves recognition. If I was freed right now, I’d commission the greatest sculpture artist on earth to make a statue of her as she held the world on her back and her feet stood on broken glass and rose thorns, symbolizing all the struggles she’s been through. I strongly believe she needs to be celebrated because she is the symbol of a women’s hardship mixed with the courage to persevere.
Even as I write this she continues to persevere. She still works in the hospital while the Delta Variant is on the rise. She still takes great care of her four children who mean the world to her. And she still, as she calls it, puts up with my craziness. But her challenges have not stopped. Right now, she faces eviction because the pandemic has caused inflation on rental property. And her landlord is eager to take advantage. She told me the other day, ”Sean, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” I felt helpless. All I could think was “How could I help?” but I knew there was nothing I could do. That hurts. All I want to see is that she’ll be okay.
But words of comfort are all I have. “Babe, it will be alright.” “God is going to make a way.” “Stay strong, Babe.” But these words don’t pay the bills. They don’t fix the house or take care of the kids. They just ease the pain for the moment.
But when the moment fades, all the pain returns like the pain inside my heart when I think about her struggle. There aren’t a lot of people in the world who care like her. Those who will take the time to love someone in prison. Those who can balance a full-time job working in a hospital during Covid-19 while Door Dashing on the weekend, feeding four kids, paying all her bills on time, still fighting to get out of debt, and on the verge of eviction. There are very few people like my wonderful wife.
That’s how I know my wonderful wife deserves better, because she and women like her go unheard of every day. So, this is for her and those like my wife who fight and struggle to make ends meet. They need to be known and appreciated.
So know that her name is Ashley. She is the women with the angelic smile and the magnetic heart, both as bright as the Sun. Let the Angels in Heaven bless her for all her hard work. And let joy and happiness be her reward. I appreciate her with all my heart. She is definitely my Super Woman Wife.
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