Salve Regina!
I’m a pretty tough guy, but I do have a softer less tough side. And I might be an arch Donald Trump supporter, but there are certain ways you just won’t hear me talking about women. I attribute this to my Roman Catholicism. Whoa! Now hold on there. I’m not insinuating that the non-Catholic men of America have no respect for women. I’m just saying that this is what I cite in my particular case. And by the way, the president has plenty of respect for women.
It all started when I was a child. I tried experimenting with prayer, and predictably, it was habit forming. Before long I was doing five or six a day. My parents knew what was going on and even encouraged it. I even did the hard stuff, like the Hail Mary, and by the time I was a teenager, the effects were permanent. Yep, it was that Hail Mary, felt great every time. Now I’m left with irreversible respect for women.
For a while I tried to push the stuff, but it was futile. Each time I made the effort, other Catholic men told me they were already doing it. Wonderful thing, the Hail Mary. A lot of us have found that you can prolong its effects by really hanging on each word. I won’t bore you with a full-on literary analysis, but when you really read the words and realize that God, Himself, personally chose a woman for such a big job, it gives you a good idea of how much respect he has for women. And you just can’t help but forming an image in your mind of a woman who is incredibly selfless and loving. Men ask this woman to pray for their eternal salvation. That’s a good habit to get into because when you pray to a queen in heaven, it would take a lot of nerve to mistreat the rest of her sorority here on earth.
Eighteen years ago when my wife gave birth to our first child, I got to watch. That’s when it really hit me. The titanic effort I saw in my wife was like having Mary’s selflessness played out right in front me. No, I’m not trying to blaspheme or say that my wife gave birth to Jesus. I’m saying that the majority of men reflexively think that the most exhaustive forms of physical effort are the ones that make us sweat and give us our knocks and bruises. Such perceptions are not easily altered. In my case, though, I believe that it was the intercession of the Queen of the Holy Rosary that allowed me to understand that what I saw eighteen years ago – and twice since – goes a little beyond what exhausts many men, and with the added bonus of bringing a human being into the world.
So I’d like to share a poem that I wrote for my wife a few weeks after we brought our first child home. You fellas out there should try writing one too for your wives. It doesn’t matter how many words you know. Just make it from the heart.
The Mother Of My Son
A singular sort of love-
Never untoward, never undone-
Springs from the mother of my son.
To the chagrin of Atlas, with his sinew and sweat,
The strength of a mother is indescribable as yet.
As the world spins hectic ‘long its wobbly way,
For motherly love we all should pray.
Women are made of fashion
And glamour and glitz,
But a mother earns greatness
As sleepless she sits.
Throughout the night, past sun’s first ray,
She nurses her child and is praised in May.
One day of honor for all of hers
Seems a little strange,
Still merrily she embraces
This rate of exchange.
These words were part chosen by the child she bore,
By the warmth in his cheeks, the look in his eye,
By the joy of his laugh, his contented sigh.
No such prize from game or gamble
Is that which is had by the mother of my son,
Just a tender little heart deservedly won.
