Dear Father,

Hopeful am I that your rests have been peaceful, there, in Jehovah’s arms. My recent nights have been anything but.

I didn’t realize I was so mistake-prone—being that I carry your very genes. So diligently have I tried to pace my emotional steps in walking alongside a woman, my intentions to handle with care the woman brave enough to inhabit my oxygen zone.

Denise is her name, Father. She hated it when first I called her that. I laughed internally at her reaction . . . not of humor, but because I sensed a momentary unhappiness dwelling within her, having somehow manifested itself in the form of strident displeasure with life.

I wondered if she’d ever been touched tenderly. Had she ever experienced the warmth of another sun in the person of a special mocha man—rare though we are.

Father, the woman found her way into my guarded life. And discovered me. She discovered you. She discovered mother. She discovered a genius, hapless, reluctant, awkward, flawed, unassuming, hard-headed, silly yet driven romance writer . . . like no other in this careless universe.

She somehow, for some reason unbeknownst to your son, believed in me. Denise believed in me. Something in my soul, something in my voice, something, Father, something in my slow hand touched the woman. My pen, my mind, my ceaseless creativity perhaps played a part. My body scent didn’t hurt either, I suspect.

Her fragrance, by the grace of God, her very fragrant essence, Father, I wear like a second skin still. Her candles flame as I write this, Father, but it is her fragrance they emit.

She stormed away as if she had competition. Denise had convinced herself that she had competition. Imagine that.

Little did she know: She has no rival.

My love for the woman is purely uncontested. Little did she know.

Put that one squarely on your son—my fault, my foible, my failure. I’d suspected all along, though in quiet denial alongside, that I’m human after all. But humanness, in all its frailty, is no excuse for letting a love down.

Mother, all these years later, still carries the hurt you caused, man. I know it wasn’t your intention. Ill will wasn’t part of your make-up. You know how I know? Because you live in me, Mocha Man. You are the inspiration, the very birther, of Pamper-Her-Friday as much as my own ever-fertile mind. And you should know: She loves you to this very day. Still. It’s in her eyes.

Love is stronger than pride.

My god, Father, what I would give to simply hold Denise’s hand once again . . . on a rainy winter night, walking, pace for measured pace, on the sidewalk of that holiday-soft-lighted Mainstreet. I’d forgotten my gloves (I never forget my gloves in winter!), the air was crisp and moist-heavy, it was, while the puddles along the path held a storybook romance in their stillness.

I gloved her hand with my own, Father. I really believe it’s not until a man takes a woman’s tender, bare-naked hand into his own that he interprets her spiritual definition. That he begins to grasp his responsibility—to her. If her hand gives way, if it grasps back with a firm yet soft clasp, if she gives her hand without reluctance, then she gives herself to him. And therein lies his responsibility . . . a majestic, romantic, protective, integral responsibility—she.

Chivalry lives in that woman, Father. As it lives so fervently in me.

God, what I would give to open the passenger door for her, without fail, of my motorcar just once more. We both like how that feels. I saw it in her gemstone eyes, Father.

Denise is a romantic. And she recognized that hallowed quality in your son, perhaps long before I took her hand on that rainy winter’s night.

What I would give to romance her once more. Romance her to the edge of winter, throughout the rainy, snowy season. Romance her to and in Cancun’s sandy-beached, warm-breeze allure. Romance her facing the mouth of a flaming-logs fireplace on a cuddle-worthy love sofa. Romance her to China and India and South Africa and Newfoundland, where the natives are reciting verses of Pamper-Her-Friday creatives in both English and their native languages—because it sounds and feels so soothing to the universal soul.

Romance Denise—alas, pamper Denise—with the dividend checks from long-studied investments your son has made with the forethought inherited from you, Father.

Pamper her with, more than all, the unfettered, unadulterated, unconditional love that she knows in her heart your son is capable of.

To pamper her, Father, is this writer’s, your son’s, wish . . . if only once more.

On Pamper-Her-Friday . . . .

I love you, Roy Sr.

Ever your son,
Rg2

_______

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Pamper the woman . . . before she gets away. -Rg2

© 2019 Pamper-Her-Friday by Rg2®