The Heart of a  Happy Wife
....dreamy reminiscing

Years ago my uncle and aunt gave me a book for Christmas. I was a teenager and frankly, receiving a book of prose, poems and excerpts from classic literature did not thrill me. I put away the black book with the gold lettering spelling out 1000 Beautiful Things

Years later I got the book out. I do not remember why.
Perhaps to look something up, maybe because of my love for books as decor I put it on a shelf----it's black cover with the gilt-gold leaves was pretty and went with my bedroom colors.
It doesn't really matter. At some point I picked it up to read.
I happened to come across a sweet poem. Mind you, I never liked poetry since being forced to recite a weird one in front of a snickering English class in high school.
But, this little-known poem in the book struck some part of me.
Maybe the part of me that remembered playing house as a little girl. Whether it was with my little friends, baby dolls lined up under our big elm tree in the summer or with my reluctant brother whom I bribed to play with me, I loved playing house. I remember telling Ken, my little brother, "I'll play fort with you if you play house with me."---never admitting I loved to set up forts, cowboys, animals and his train. He hated playing house, but when our friends couldn't play we entertained ourselves playing with each other.
Anyway, this poem struck a chord in my heart. A chord that made me long for the day I was no longer playing but keeping my own home with my own husband (not pretending with my captive brother whom I always made play one of my kids or my husband. He didn't like either role!).
Today, after being married for 41 years to the same man. Having three children, three in-law children and eleven grandchildren, I love to read or think about this poem because it expresses what is in my heart.
It reflects the joys I have felt over the years. It tells of the joy I still feel being a homemaker.

This is an excerpt from
 "The Elfin Wife"
written many years ago by Jake Falstaff

"Whether it is linens, clean smelling, piled,

Whether it is chairs or rugs or dresses,

She goes among them like a dreamy child,

Playing with the things she loves and possesses."

I also remember Maureen O'Hara's part  in the movie "The Quiet Man"  whose desire was to have  "...her things about her."  And I remember the character she played playing her spinet with great joy as she finally did have her mother and grandmothers' things about her.
I remember that dreamy joy and how beautiful it looked.

I never had a hope chest.
They weren't popular in my day.
But I did have a hope drawer in my bureau. In it I kept things my mother, grandmother and great grandmother gave me to save for the day I would, like them, have my own home and family.
But mostly I kept things in my heart.
I "named" the future children I dreamed of having. I "decorated" my future home.
I "planned" the wedding in which I hoped to be the bride.
I was a "dreamy" child who would look up at the moon and stars from my bedroom window and realize in wonder that my future husband was under the same moon and stars.
I wondered what he would look like, be like.....
I prayed for him. 

And like, as they say, "Fairy tales, will come true, it can happen to you..." my dreams did come true.
 Now, 41 years after that beautiful wedding, alone again with my husband in our home, I look back on all those dreams that the poem reminds me of and I marvel.
 I am so blessed!
It is good during the sometimes mundane duties of being a homemaker to reflect on the more
romantic aspects of your high calling and remember your girlhood dreams.
Thank you Uncle Howard and Aunt Carol.
The book was a wonderful gift.
It is a little worn now, but somehow I think that would make you happy.

Kathi~