The Sweet Husband

Tommie and the Bear

My 37th wedding anniversary is coming up in 5 days, and I guess it's that and the fact that this has been such a rough year for my husband medically, it has me kind of weepy feeling.

My sister,LaJeanne told me the other day that since her husband died, having Randy living down the street made her feel like she had her own personal bulldog. That if someone bothered her, or she got scared she felt much safer calling him than she would calling the police.

I realized I have felt the same way for years. Randy is a big old guy, when we married, he was 6'3" 238 lbs of muscle. I was 5'7 and 97 lbs of bone. His daddy said we looked like a gnat and a bear together, so forever after, he became my bear.

He had always loved to fight, he was loud and socially unacceptable, and had as gentle a heart as you can imagine, but with super skills at hiding it. He tells me that I have a voice like one of those dog whistles, nobody could hear it but him. I spoke low,but if I felt he was going to hit someone, I would say his name, he claims he could hear it from a block away, and he would look like a disappointed five year old, and say some ungodly curse word, but walk away from the fight. That happened mostly in the pits at the race track when we were younger.

But on occasion someone will make me mad enough that I sic the bulldog on them, and he is SO excited when those rare times occur.

Once, when our daughter was in school a male teacher deliberately humiliated her in the classroom. I called him and said I need you to go to the school and make sure this does not happen again. He said, can I hit him? I told him no, you cannot, but you will scare him, and I think that will be enough. It was, and the counsellor at the school,who was a friend, called me and thanked me, she said that Randy told the man that it didn't matter if it was our child or not, that if any one of her friends that were in any of his classes ever reported to him that it had happened with any child, he would be waiting for him when he got out of class.

The only occasion I didn't stop him from actually hitting someone was when my middle child told me that when my youngest daughters husband wanted to abuse her he would stomp her feet with his workboots on because they were living in the house with us, and no bruises would show. I walked back into the house, Randy was in the living room in his chair, my daughter and son in law were in the bedroom with the baby. I called her name, she came into the living room,and I said take your shoes off. Tears immediately came into her eyes,and I raised my voice and said take your damned shoes off.Her husband came out of the bedroom and started for the front door. I said, Randy stop him. Randy said what in the hell is going on, as he grabbed her husband by the arm. I said he hurt her. My bear did not say a word, he hit her husband square on the top of his head and I did nothing to stop him. When he picked him up to hit him again,I called his name,that time, he hit him one more time before he stopped. After her husband and her daddy had a little man to man talk outside,there was no more issues with abuse. Her husband reported that he felt two inches shorter and could not turn his head to the right or to the left for several months.

It has definitely not always been easy, and it's always been loud, but there is an unbelievable amount of love and laughter in this house. Everyone should have a bear.