Making the List
By John Addyman | john.addyman@yahoo.com
There’s this nice thing my wife does before she goes to bed. She sits in her office, thinks about her day and writes down all the things that she’s grateful for in a little notebook.
“What kinds of things are you grateful for?” I ask.
“Oh, I’m grateful for the nice day, I’m grateful that our youngest daughter called to tell me about her new house, I’m grateful my sunflowers are so spectacular this year…” she replies.
I noticed that she had a bookmark in her notebook. There was writing on the bookmark.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s a list of things I’m always grateful for,” she said, smiling.
“Am I on that list?” I asked, smiling.
“Nope,” she said, smiling.
You know that sound when your smile emoji turns into your sad emoji? I just made that sound.
“I’m not on the list?”
“Not today.”
“I made the bed this morning.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I cooked dinner last night and made my own dinner tonight.”
“Yes, you did.”
There are no socks or underwear on the floor in the bedroom.”
“No there isn’t.”
“I took the garbage out.”
“Yes, you did.”
“So how come I’m not on the list?”
“This is my October list.”
“You mean I haven’t been on your list for a month?”
She looked back through the pages in her notebook. There were other bookmark lists. She ran her finger down each one as she read each item.
“You haven’t been on the list since, let me see…June.”
“June? Really?”
You know the sound your sad emoji makes when it turns into your consternation emoji? Like dragging your nails across a chalkboard? Screeeeeech!
I married this woman 56 years ago. I dated her for five years before that. We have four kids. And three grandchildren. I carry a lovely picture in my wallet of her when she was a senior in high school. I keep her warm on the coldest winter nights.
And I’m not on the list?
I’M NOT ON THE FRIGGIN’ LIST???!!!!!
She’s looking at me, knowing, I’m certain, that I have a thunderstorm going on in my brain. I’m about to spit lightning bolts out of my ears and blow hailstones out of my nose.
“Honey,” I say in my genuinely dearest and husbandly tone, “surely there must be ways, a legion of ways, that I can get on the list more often…even on the monthly list.”
“You make the list every once in a while,” she said.
“I do? Give me a for-instance…”
“For instance when you helped with the church rummage sale…”
“That was in May.”
“And you welcomed my sister for that week.”
“I love your sister.”
“And you made dinner every night.”
“Of course.”
“And you were pleasant and loving all week.”
“What else did you expect?”
“Well, after the sale was over, you went back to being you,” she explained.
Being me.
I didn’t want to picture what “being me” meant, but my curiosity was calling.
I was imagining what the entries in her I’m-grateful-for journal looked like. On the last day of the rummage sale maybe she wrote, “I’m grateful for my husband today. He was so helping and loving. He even did the laundry.”
And then the next day: “My husband is still here. Oh, well.”
I asked: “Am I still ‘being me’ today?”
“Ooooh yes,” she said. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“Not necessarily a bad thing?” I asked.
“I know you’re trying,” she said.
“Obviously I’m not hitting the goal. Any tips on what I can do to make the bookmark?”
“Dishes?” she suggested. “Dusting? Painting? Hang up pictures? Get stuff off the floor in your office? Donate the pants that don’t fit you anymore? Change the light bulb in the cellar? Wash my car?”
“I’ll wash your car,” I said.
“That’s a start,” she said.
I think the next thing she wrote in her notebook was, “I’m grateful my husband has promised to get off the couch for once…