What’s Love Got To Do With It

This is a story about a guy named Tom. Tom died from prostate cancer when he was only 38, an age when most men haven’t even been advised to have their PSA checked. He was a charismatic and handsome man who was part of my circle of friends about twenty years ago and for some reason I was thinking of him this morning. Tom was single after a long-term relationship and probably had a little OCD going on because at his house, everything was in pristine order. Nothing out of place, everything clean and tidy. His yard was immaculately landscaped. He never looked disheveled. I can’t remember where he met Debbie, I think she may have worked at a bank. She was a single mom who had a ten-year-old boy from a previous marriage. When I met Debbie I thought she was great and she was definitely great for Tom. After they had been married for a few months, they had a party at her house. (He had sold his.) Things were clean enough but the place certainly looked “lived in”. Stuff was on the counters and table. Elementary school science projects in various states of completion were here and there. I had somehow ended up with a red-eared slider turtle in a large aquarium and was looking for home for it. I was stunned when Tom suggested that this kid now in his life would love to have the turtle so my cute little reptile went to live there. There were disorganized stacks of books piled in the living room and bedroom. And most amazing of all, a miniature pot-bellied pig roamed around the place and was allowed in the house. Nothing was pristine but Tom was practically glowing. I guess he decided what things were important to him. This isn’t a sad story about checking PSA earlier than normal guidelines advise. It’s just a story about how being in love totally changed a guy I used to know.

Photo courtesy myshoun at Pixabay.com