Over on TWA, they are talking about what makes the perfect man. This paragraph in the comment section stood out!
Me, I’ll take a man. A grown-up. A man other men respect, not some pretty boy who spends way too much time being concerned with his looks or his toys or his social life to be a real husband and a real father. A man who can take care of his elderly mother and Alzheimers-stricken father, who can make his daughter feel like a beautiful young woman the day she comes home with a mouthful of braces, and who can spend Saturday afternoon oiling his 18 year old son’s baseball glove just because he misses him so much. I’ll take a man who, twenty years later, still makes me feel like the only woman in the world when he looks at me.
On reading the paragraph, what strikes me about this writer’s idea of the perfect man, and mine too, is that the perfect man isn’t self-centered and focused only on himself, but is self giving.
My first model of the perfect man, was my grandfather. In his 50s he took back into his home his pregnant daughter, and his 14 month old granddaughter – me!! And he never made us feel that we were just visiting, or there on his good graces. We always felt that we were at home and that we were very welcome. My grandfather worked in the factory for General Motors, and he came home and the mechanical and farming stuff that needed to be done on our farm. Consequently he was rarely clean and shiny. His pants were often stained with oil and dirt, he was sweaty, and his hands were permanently stained and callused. His work boots were worn and dull. But on Sundays, he put on his only suit and made us breakfast of bacon and eggs (in real grease… back then we didn’t even know what cholesterol was!) and then we went to mass where he sang a hearty deep bass. For years and years he even ushered and we were all very proud of him. He played with us, he teased us, he held us. To me, he will always be the perfect man.
Now I met Mr. Pete in high school in the late 70s. He had long shiny blond hair and long legs and he tied a bandana around one of his thin jeaned thighs. I was totally smitten. And he dressed well because he had a job. I remember one pair of pants he bought in the 80s started out dark dark green at the bottom of the bells, and got lighter and lighter until at his waist they were a cream color. Total disco era, totally made him look a lot taller than his 6’1 frame. I loved those pants. I think they were also a size 30, 36! But even though that is what I remember, that’s not what makes me love Mr. Pete now! Today, he loves to get deals on his work jeans at Gabriel Brothers, or on sale at Walmart and they’re more a 34, 36 now! His jeans are permanently stained with oil and dirt from working at his repair job and all of the side jobs he does as well as working around the house. His hands are usually stained too and rough and callused. But when he dresses up to sing for church on Sunday or teach his 6th grade PSR class – he looks fantastic! He coaches soccer, he drives our oldest to 6:00 a.m. swim practice, he tells me I look fantastic even though I have like 53 days left in this pregnancy and look like a beach ball on stilts! And in my book he’s a perfect man too.
But in thinking on the life of the pope, I think he was also a perfect man! He studied hard, worked hard, followed his passion and then followed God’s calling for his life. He was brave, risking his life and freedom a number of times. He was also devout and caring, pouring out the life he had for those around him and serving God to the last second that he had breath in his body.
To me at least, all three of these gentleman were my idea of the “perfect man.” Not because of how they looked, or what they did, but because of how they lived their lives.
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