Second Half

I adore my husband.

He calls himself “a quiet man of faith and peace,” and that is what he is. I married a man who faithfully says the morning prayer service, studies Torah and always knows what parsha we are on that week. He runs errands, vacuums without being asked and brings me gifts on my birthday.

In the evening, after dinner, I ask him questions.

“So you wanted to be a Marine, not a regular sailor?”

“No!”, he scoffs. “I wanted adventure.”

“And you’ve been all over the world… with a girl in every port?”, I look at him slyly.

He chuckles and takes my hand.

“That’s a fable,” he says, reassuring me, his naïve wife.

“So it would’ve been pretty hard to go from storming beaches to a desk job, I guess,” I say, returning to the topic.

“It would’ve been, yes.”, he nods slowly.

He tells me the stories of his long career as a paramedic; the car accidents, the disastrous results of domestic violence, the gang fights, all interspersed with tales of lonely elderly people and the crazy reasons the fire department might be called in the middle of the night. I hear about the SWAT team and rappelling down towers.

“I was definitely an adrenaline junkie,” he says thoughtfully.

“Yeah,” I agree out loud.

“Who is this guy?”, I think to myself.

Our story is a tale of grownups being surprised by fallingin love. We were looking for companions, someone to quietly live out the second half of life with when we met and discovered that chemistry doesn’t end at age50. We married after three months and while I knew the names of his past, I didn’t know the experiences.

In the morning, I race into the kitchen, one sock on and makeup half done while he is making oatmeal.

“Hungry!”, I say by way of explanation. As usual, I’m running late. I head for the pantry and then stop.

“Hey! This is exactly what I came in for!”, I say, referencing the bag of protein powder sitting on the counter, ready to use.

“Mmhmm,” he says quietly, knowingly, while attending to the measurements of grain.

I turn to admire him, smiling and enjoying the moment of recognition despite the missing sock and my rush into the mundanity of the day.

“Thank you.”

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