And how a good marriage is comprised of both the black and the red variety.

A number of years ago, I shan’t tell you how many, for that would expose my rapidly accelerating level of antiquity to even those of you who, like our beloved Pooh of which we are exceptionally fond, are of very little brain. Math brain, that is, not ordinary brain. I’m sure you are endowed with plenty of ordinary brain. And maybe you have a hefty dose of math brain as well. Which basically means you are one of the Intelligents of the upper echelons of society. 

But I digress. 

A number of years ago, my husband and I flew off to the West Coast to celebrate our tenth anniversary, two years after the fact. (Yes, yes, Math Brain. I know. It was technically our 12th anniversary, but never you mind. The fact remains that we were celebrating our 10th.) 

Vancouver, our chosen destination, is a lovely city as cities go, with plenty of well-tended parks and woodlands throughout, yet sprinkled with enough wild blackberry brambles to convince us that the undomesticated things of this earth will never be completely tamed until Jesus returns. 

It being Vancouver, we knew that one of the first orders of business was to procure an umbrella each, and so we trotted through the misty drizzle to a nearby grocery store. That is, I trotted. The six foot husband, strode. Either way, we “stirred our stumps” as Grandma Dowdel* was wont to say. 

My husband, the soul of class and practicality as well as a man of action, did as he always does and efficiently selected two well-made, black umbrellas, wasting no time whatsoever in contemplation or indecision before moving on. I, however, silently eyed the red umbrella begging to be chosen, but habit kept my mouth shut as I followed my husband to the check out counter. 

Now, before you crucify my husband and hang him out to dry, let me quickly insert that I am married to one of the kindest people you will ever meet. He values women in general and honours me in particular. My lack of expressing my opinion was not the involuntary recoil of a woman trying to appease a domineering husband. 

It was not because I feared my husband’s fragile male ego; (if he has one, we have yet to be introduced.)

It was deep seated, inborn habit, intricately woven into the fabric of my desire to please my husband, however broken and frayed it’s thread of reason. Somehow, somewhere, I had adopted the idea that unless my husband asked for my opinion, I had no business sharing it. In my head, I knew this wasn’t true. If you had asked me, I would have said the right words, and yet I lived as though it was gospel truth. 

My husband on the other hand wanted my opinion. He honoured it, and after a conversation early in our marriage wherein he expressed this, he expected me to freely speak my mind without being constantly asked to do so. (As well he should!) He grew up in a world of loudly opinionated people who had no trouble letting him know what they wanted and didn’t want, and while he appreciated that I was neither loud, nor bossy, he fully expected me to act upon the agreement we had made. 

I tried. I really did, but I had no idea how deeply rooted were the lies in my head, and I was woefully unprepared for the effort it would take to claw my way out of it’s grip, even with the help of my ever-patient husband and the gracious good-will of the Lord Jesus. 

I prayed.
I talked to my husband. 

I made progress. 

But here I was, walking out of a darling little grocery store in the beautiful city of Vancouver, trying to tell myself it didn’t matter that my umbrella was black. Because it really didn’t, did it? Black would do the job. And it certainly wouldn’t ruin the delight of our week together, sans children and bonus family members. 

Or would it? 

Suddenly, I knew that it would. Not because the umbrella color mattered, nor yet because I couldn’t set aside the idea of wanting the red umbrella, but because my actions were those of the “door mat” persona I was trying so hard to overcome. 

I skidded to a full stop, and because I was holding my husband’s arm, he stopped rather abruptly as well. 

“Yes?” He queried, glancing quizzically at my upturned face, “Did we forget something?” 

“I want the red umbrella,” I announced in a rush, “I don’t know why, but I really want the red one.” 

I wish y’all could have seen the look of bewildered delight that crossed his face, and the endearment his eyes showered over me as he pivoted on the spot, returned to the store and promptly exchanged the black umbrella for the cheerful red one. 

We giggled like school children as we danced down the rain-soaked sidewalk a short time later, our not-matching umbrellas held aloft like sentinels, standing testament to a wonderful marriage. Okay, okay! Maybe I giggled and danced while he smiled contentedly and walked like the upstanding, sensible piece of humanity that he is. 

That day marked the beginning of the end of my believing the lie that good wives don’t share their opinions unless they’re asked for them. Somehow the delight on my husband’s face healed something deep in my soul that remains convinced to this day that I am valued, not for what I do, nor how well I submit to him, but because I am his wife and he is my man. 

We celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary a few days ago and it was no coincidence that the card I gave him sported a large, brilliantly red umbrella. Because every time I am tempted to believe otherwise, I remember the red umbrella and the look on my husband’s face, and I remember that, to him, my voice matters just as much as he always said it did. 

I guess there’s a reason every umbrella I’ve owned since then, no matter where on this earth I may be, is, -you guessed it; red.

*A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck