Darling Sylvia, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.  It’s early morning.  You are a slug a bug in bed.  Last night you couldn’t sleep.  I’ve just spent two glorious hours in the garden.  I fertilized the blueberries.  The Vigoro “Beautiful Gardens Since 1924” label on the fertilizer bag triggered thoughts of Dad.  If you do something, son, do it well.  Have some pride.  If it is worth doing, do it well.  I was guilty of leaving the Vigoro in the bag all winter.  Dad’s rules for life paralleled his rules for his garden. Fertilizer was not left in the shed all winter; it was spread in the fall.  A sprayer half full of Malathion was to be used.  It killed no bugs sitting in the shed.  The plants in the garden were to be tilled; otherwise, they would be smothered out by weeds.  A garden not watered dries up.  If you have a garden, son, tend it or don’t do it at all.

What I am talking about, of course, is our marriage.  Our marriage is our life’s garden.  Words of love not said, acts of love not completed, and the investment of time and energy not taken do not grow our marriage.  I want to grow our marriage. It’s worth doing well.

I love you because of who you are and the grace you bring into my life.  Since that moment at Lumberjack Park in 1968, when you said yes, I have known that you think I can become a better person than I think I can.  I love you because you always have my back.  Of course, your sleepy almost seventy-year-old body turns on my seventy-year-old body as much as it did when it was nineteen. You are beautiful when you sleep.

Love Eddie Bert, aka Garden Boy