Up Front / Commentary: She was the love of my life, crazy for me

My Gawd. Great Scott. Has it been more than two years since I lost the love of my life? My protector? My guardian angel?

If I count right, I guess it has been that long. I didn't think I could wait that long. Well, lately I haven't been feeling that good so I better get this written while I still know what's up and what's down.

It has been 50 years since we were married and I still recall that day as the day she saved my life. She took me off the street and made a man out of me - not some wino sitting in the doorway of a building drinking out of a brown paper bag.

I really knew I had something special, something of value, when my ex-wife killed herself in a drunken car wreck and we just added two clicks to our family enrollment and went right on as though nothing happened. It takes guts to have five kids with two different last names, and now seven with three different last names. She went right on making family decisions that had us up and running for 50 years.

I was kind of squirrely. My job was to bury our many cats. But I just didn't bury them right off. I remember when they would curl up on my lap or bring home an animal like a gopher and leave him on our front porch. Happy days abounded then, and if it hadn't been for that awful pancreatic cancer, the good times would still be rolling.

She was the only woman I ever wanted and loved - and still do and always will. I guess I'm one of these one-woman men, and happy to be. I'm not a religious guy, but I think people that good have to have a soul. I've done too many stupid things in my life to carry a soul. Guess I'm out of the running. No big loss.

So when the judgment day comes, there had better be a pretty big monument of some kind somewhere declaring that she even trod this Earth and saved a family and made life beautiful for nine people. She deserves everything she gets plus a rousing "Way to go Phyl" for the many things we all loved about her. I know she has a soul and it's going full blast somewhere along the avenue.

You know, there was a song that came out near the end of the Great Depression: "I Got A Woman Crazy For Me, She's Funny That Way."

That was my one and only Phyl.

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Deering is a retired Tribune printer. He can be reached at city@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2269.