The Mythological Good Man

I desperately want to write a post about my husband (whose name shall be revealed here now- it is- are you ready for this? Mr. Moon!) because it's Father's Day tomorrow, but for some reason I'm having a terribly hard time with it.
It's really no wonder that I am. I grew up with first a father who was a drunk of such persistence that after he threatened to kill my mother, my brother and I, my mother had to leave him, and then a step-father who was a child molester and a psychological terrorist.
So I never really had what you'd call a father (or at least what I'd call a father) and because of that, I was probably drawn to men who were, for the most part, charismatic bad boys whom I figured I could fix with my love, attention, and devotion.
Yeah. That didn't work out so well.
And when Mr. Moon came a courtin', he was so off the mark as to the sort of man I'd be attracted to (see above) that my immediate reaction was to show him the door but something inside of me, some wise and aware part of me, cautioned me not to do that, but instead to open it wide, let him come in and plight his troth.
Which he did. And then managed somehow to move in with me after about fifteen minutes.
The first thing I noticed about Mr. Moon and the first thing every one notices about him, is his height. He's almost seven feet tall.
Everywhere I go with him and everywhere I have ever gone with him, his height has attracted attention. Especially from women.
"How tall ARE you?" they ask him, eyes wide and head tilted to the side, the better to take in all of the glorified goodness which is Mr. Moon.
"Did you play basketball?" they ask.
And he treats every one as if they were the first person ever, ever to comment on his height. With courtesy and with humor, and that was one of the first things I ever noticed about him. That and the way he walked and held himself, which was as if he was taking advantage of every single bit of height he had, proud to be a giant among men, born happy to be born special, and smiling all the time.
He smiled so much I wondered if there was something wrong with him. Honestly. I did.
And then when he fell in love with me, I was certain there was something wrong with him, but I figured that if I married him quick he'd not have time to notice how crazy I was, how needy, how very ill prepared to be the wife of a man like him.
He says he fell in love with me because the sweater I was wearing kept falling off my shoulder and because I made biscuits the way his grandmother did. I say it's because of the way I could shovel horse shit off the back of a pick-up truck for the garden.
Whatever. Whichever.
We got married.
I've realized since then that the man has a need to take on a challenge and I suppose I presented a huge one. I was obviously "not right" as we say around here. I had so much pent-up anger and hurt and bad stuff in me that it's a wonder I didn't have a bio-hazard sign tattooed on my forehead. But because he's got a heart so big that God had to give him a body the size of a giant to fit it in, he ignored all that crazy stuff and just saw a woman who needed a good man and two kids who needed a good dad and figured he could make it all alright.
He went from being a fairly casual house-painter to being a business owner who worked twelve hours a day, six days a week in a matter of months after we were married because he knew that what a husband and a father does is support his family.
He supported us, he was there. He gave everything he had to being the father and the husband he was raised to think a man should be. Although he didn't tread on the boundaries of my oldest two's biodad, he did everything a daddy would do for them. He went to school conferences and concerts and plays and recitals and karate events and he supported them in every way possible.
And he took care of the mama.
He gave me such a net of safety and love that I was able to admit and get help for all the hurt and anger and fear the fathers had instilled in me and he supported me as I did that. Sometimes I raged at him, even though he was innocent, because I couldn't rage at the men who'd damaged me. And he let me. He let me cry, he let me scream, he let me go through all the shit I had to go through to become if not quite whole, at least a lot less broken.
He couldn't do it for me, but he made it possible for me to do it myself by always, always being there.
He gave me two more babies and I doubt any one of my children would say they could have a better father than Mr. Moon. My two oldest children have two dads- but both men are their fathers. And both have given them very special and distinct gifts but I don't think that in their minds they have any doubt that at any time, their stepfather wouldn't do anything in his power to help them if they needed that. No questions asked.
In fact, he's proven that more than once.
On the worst day of my life, when one of my children got hit by a car and was taken to the hospital, I called him, right after I hung up from that call that no parent wants to get. I was in hysterics, crying and he said, "I'll meet you at the hospital." I was about five blocks from that hospital. He was about five miles. He beat me there. And he was the one to put his head in the ambulance to see our girl because I could not do it out of fear, out of terror. He sat there in that tiny cubicle in the emergency room, right beside her, even though he passes out at the sight of blood. He was there.
He's been there. He's the daddy.
He's the husband.
We're so different, in so many ways I can't begin to list them, but when you get right down to it, when you get to the core of the heart of the matter, we agree. The family is what's important. The children are what's important.
Our love is what it's all based on.
We love the water, we love the porch. We love to travel together, we love to sit home and eat dinner in front of the TV. We love to garden.
We love each other.
Twenty-four years after meeting him, and after twenty-three years of marriage, I love him more than ever. That sounds like a cliche but it's just the damn truth. We're both getting deaf, we're growing more and more eccentric, we're not the spry and cute young chickens we once were, but dammit, all that stuff is just...stuff.
And he's still almost seven feet tall and his heart is as big as ever.
All I can say is that I sure am glad I was wearing that sweater that night. And that I can make good biscuits and don't mind shoveling horse shit.
And that he loves me.
And not just because he is my comfort and joy but because he loves our babies. Each and every one for who and what they are. No buts about it, no questions asked.
I may not have had a father, but I found one for my kids and I did a damn good job.
And in doing so, I achieved what I had never even dreamed I could ever do, which was to create the sort of family I never had, but always wanted.
So thank you, Mr. Moon for always being here.
Don't stop. Don't you ever stop.