I can't bear it!! How will I continue to put one foot after another and keep walking towards the unknown without my husband? I married Tom because of a promise that he made to my parents as they lay dying. I love Tom, but not in the magical feelings of romance novels that I read. I sneaked those books into the barn and read. My parents would have been scandalized. Just watching my parents relationship showed me how a marriage should be. They were absolutely besotted with another. I think they both died because they simply couldn't imagine any life without the other. They had known each other for most of their lives. They came to Tennessee as a newly married couple. The only asset they carried with them was their love for each other and ten dollars.
My mother told me that I would grow to love Tom. Tom and I are so very different. He is reserved. I am not. He has very definite opinions about a few things, but simply isn't even curious about anything else. Our conversations are thence extremely limited. I must admit that one of his favorite subjects bores me to tears. Oh how he loves discussing the best types of seeds for the best harvest rewards. He studies the soil obsessively.
The only time that I found this interesting conversation was one time when he was plowing and dug up a beautiful statue. It was carved from stone. He gave the statue to me. I treasure it. It has a woman kneeling looking up towards the heaven that she is imploring.
Tom simply said, "She's probably praying to some heathen God." I don't believe in Tom's limited judgmental God. His God only recognizes the pious Christian. I was taught that even if we call our God a different name, chances are that we are still praying to the same Father in Heaven. I was also taught that we are all brothers and sisters, children of the same God. Tom is biased against anybody that is a different color, a different religion, or just plain different.
I feel badly as I reread what I just wrote. I'm going to now explain the things that endears Tom to me. When my parents became desperately ill, Tom was at our home everyday doing all that he could to help me care for them. He loved my parents as well as he loved his own flesh and blood. When my parents died, I had nowhere to go, no family left, except in impossibly far away Scotland. Somehow Tom convinced folks to watch over me for the last two years before I was old enough to marry him. I often think that he married me out of a sense of duty to my dead parents more than any type of love. Love is a most practical thing to Tom. He cares for the duties of marriage in the same way that he cares for the duties of farm life. I thought that lovemaking would be....well...more pleasurable. Okay, no more of that conversation. It makes me very uncomfortable.
When I discovered that Tom was actually leaving to go fight in a war that has nothing to do with us? I was furious. Then I was desperate. Finally I gave up. Tom is the most determined human that I've ever met. In other words stubborn! He drives me crazy sometimes with his unwillingness to be flexible or see anything from other than one viewpoint. Sigh.
I did realize that I do love Tom when I realized that I may never see him again. He could actually fight and die in this dreadful war. I can't believe that anybody thinks that it's acceptable to own another human, regardless of their skin color. They have the same emotions, the same bodies, their skin is just a prettier color. Tom and I do share this belief. We think that it's unconscionable to profit from the sweat and labor of others with no remuneration.
Tom has spent his life listening to tales of brave Scottish warriors. His dad told him bedtime stories from Scottish history. I fear that Tom went to sleep with battles painting the colors of his dreams. This influence drives him to the idea that war is glorious. Warriors are men that face their fears with bravery. Oh Tom, why did you have to leave?
I'm beyond weary and tomorrow I will have to get up at the dawn of the new day. I'm alone now under the wagon. I start at every howl of coyotes or wolves. I have a lamp here with me. I must blow it out. I fear that I'm being greedy with my use of our limited kerosene. Good night.
No comments:
Post a Comment