#FathersDay is everyday: A salute to the greatest man I know

I’m not going to use this space to bash the dad I never had. He actually died this past January 2013. And if you’re saying to yourself you didn’t hear me post about it, it’s because I didn’t. I didn’t even cry. I can’t mourn for a man who was a stranger to me. I had a dad but he wasn’t a father.

But growing up without a real father (until my step-dad Greg came along) I knew one thing that was certain: No matter what, my kids were going to grow up with a father in the home. And not just any man– a GREAT MAN who would be present and involved and who would be a strong role model and a solid force in our home. And a man who would love me for me. Flaws and all.

Mission accomplished.

I found a true diamond in my husband Rudy. And this Father’s Day we will celebrate him and all his greatness. This morning on Father’s day my daughters gave him gifts. It’s so hard to give a “gift” to a man who is so  much more deserving than a few trinkets. What do you do for a man who is everything and has everything! I had this conversation on Facebook and everyone seems to think that gift giving is the way to pay homage to someone you love. However I want to argue a different point. I’ve had a successful relationship for 12 years and no disrespect but I have to start this conversation by saying, if you don’t have a man and haven’t kept the same one for a decent length of time then you don’t understand yet what it takes to keep one or perhaps you haven’t found the “right” one. Is that fair to say? Smack your eyes, lips and the like but it’s time you have a seat and LISTEN.

With that being said. I have kept one, a good one for 12 years. And here’s the kicker. We’re happy. We actually like each other. We think alike. We are out-of-the-box, we question everything and that goes the same with how we think about religion. We hate, absolutely hate tradition. We like to do what we WANT to do and not what the world says we SHOULD do. And the more the world says we should do something the more we don’t want to do it. We refuse to be prisoners of everybody’s opinion. Get it?

In a lot of ways I can’t believe I found someone so much like me. In our 12 years together we have watched so many people get married, get divorced, get married again, go through all kinds of break-ups and mishaps and yet we have stayed together strong.

There is a key, a formula to our success. And you would THINK people would see that and understand it but yet people have tunnel vision. Yes. I had a whole drawn out discussion on Facebook stating that I was tired of these holidays and that I didn’t want to buy my husband a gift. Actually I was being facetious at first. I hate when people don’t get the fact that most times I’m a comic on Facebook. I do say funny things at least I think they’re funny. But anyway I got a hailstorm of comments from people with tunnel vision who said I should buy my husband a gift as if buying him a razor has been the glue that has kept our relationship so strong for so many years. Give me a break. Actually it was from a woman with no husband who barked the loudest. (Still love u girl 🙂 )

Father’s Day is not a disrespected day. The rest of the days that YOU disrespect your husband is! How many women holler and scream and argue at their man? How many women call their man everything but a man of God? How many women stay out at the club every other night while their kids eat Frosted Flakes and hot dogs for dinner (no hot dogs is not a legit dinner!) and their house is keep unclean? How many women make it a habit to warm up microwave meals and call it dinner and refuse to pull out a cookbook and serve up a hot, home-cooked meal? How many men don’t want to come home because they dread they have to face a bitter woman with a bad attitude and so they’d rather hang out at the bar. And so you’re telling me it makes a difference when someone digs deep into their pocket, take a trip to Macy’s and buy a trinket to show appreciation? Ta-Daaa! Here’s a shirt! Are you happy now?

Really? Wow. How did we get to this point in life where we measure thoughtfulness and appreciation with a trinket and a token. Sigh.

What I’ve come to realize in the past 12 years is, that yes I’ve bought the trinkets and tokens that often end up in the back of my husband’s closet or deep down in the bottom of his sock drawer, but there is nothing more that he appreciates than the fact that I’ve made the last 12 years the BEST 12 years of his life. I learned from a previous failed marriage and so one of the gifts I give my husband is that I refuse to argue and fuss at him. Yes it’s a gift because as a woman I’ve got some DNA infrastructure that makes me want to fuss. I’ve learned patience. I learned to be kinder. I know there is nothing more than he wants than to have sex when he wants sex. Yep. He has no reason to dip and cheat because when he wants it, he gets it. No questions asked, no fake headaches over here. And we make it fun.

Even comedian Niecy Nash agrees that a full belly and an empty you know what, makes for one happy man!

It’s my commitment to keep him happy. And let’s be honest if you ask any man what they REALLY want, they want SEX more than a trinket any day!

I keep a clean house with four kids (one doesn’t live here). And it’s not easy. It’s not. I’ve heard the stories of women who don’t clean, dirty house, clothes everywhere. Trifling.

While other people buy all the material, worldly things thinking that will make their mate happy on one day, I’m actually MAKING MY MATE HAPPY. When my husband needs his “man” time, I give it to him without fuss. No hand-on-the-hip, shouting “where you going?” We have a mutual respect for each other. I cover a lot of celebrity events but by 10pm I always head back home. I’ve got a good man waiting for me and I’m not messing that up! What we have is a friendship. My husband is actually a guy who is my best friend in the world that I happen to be married to and have sex with. That’s how I can sum up our relationship.

Ask anybody, I never say a bad word to family about him, he never says a bad word to family about me. This is how it’s been for 12 years and this is why our relationship is unbreakable.No one can ever say what I might have said before about him. Yeah. That right there gets a lot of couples in trouble. Stop talking about your man if you know you’ll still be together.

And gifts? I used to be the one crazy about celebrating holidays when he met me because I was raised that way. Him? He was raised all his life as a devout Jehovah’s Witness. You know, Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t do birthdays or holidays. I probably would have been one but sorry I love birthdays. His mother, one of my favorite people in the whole world, is STILL one. My husband never celebrated holidays his whole life. So my husband actually does NOT value holidays and getting a GIFT as a way to show appreciation for a person.

I love the quote above because we actually do challenge our beliefs. And it’s okay to do. My husband was the first to teach me that giving trinkets and gifts possess no power in our life. Getting roses. Nice. Perfume? Even nicer. A pair of stilettos? The nicest! But all year long I get those things just because. He goes all out all the time. On Mother’s Day I told him I wanted nothing. And last Christmas never one of us gave a gift but of course we bought the kids lots of things.

LOVING each other and respecting each other is the BEST GIFT that we could ever give. And we do that EVERY SINGLE DAY. Not just on a made-up day to make everybody else feel better.It’s sad that people do not want to think outside of what they were taught. I grew up not taught to cover myself from head to toe. But a Muslim friend of mine was. Is her way of life wrong? Is her thought process wrong. Most of us were taught to celebrate things and taught this is the way to “show appreciation” when we should have been learning to show appreciation by our actions. What good is it if a man buys his wife a bed of roses and diamonds and then that same man that night steps out and gets in his mistresses bed?

What good is it for a woman to wait until Father’s Day to run out and buy an expensive watch or shows or a shirt to show her husband she appreciates him and then the next day she cusses him out. This type of non-sense goes on and on and on. And it’s probably happening to you. Examine what’s wrong with your relationship more deeply instead of relying on a gift to make your mate happy and appreciative for a moment in time. Gifts are great. I must admit. But shouldn’t they be given just because? If so then we give less power to the purveyors of these products who make up these holidays and make millions off of people living in squalor, living above their means and below the poverty line. The only true holiday out there is your birthday. It’s a true day to celebrate because something magical and real actually happened. I have my gripes with Christmas because Santa has nothing to do with Christ but I digress.

We’re good with our decision. While women are out shopping frantically to give a gift to a man who doesn’t even love them, and a man who’s probably out buying a gift for his mistress, I’m sitting back eating breakfast in bed with a man who truly LOVES me.

Happy Father’s Day EVERYDAY to all the true men out there taking care of their family like they should!