Soul of a Woman

Soul of a Woman

“It took the love of a woman / to steal my shaking hands / like eyesight to the blind / like salvation to the damned / but it took the touch of a woman / to make me who I am – from the song SOUL OF A WOMAN by Kevin Bowe and Mick Sterling

I have been surrounded by women all my life. I was primarily raised by my mother. My father was in my life, but my parents divorced when I was 5. Despite their difficulties in marriage, as far as dealing with kids after a divorce, they did a pretty good job about my father being in our lives, despite living with my mother. There were other issues that weren’t very good, but for the point of this story, I won’t go in to that.

The overriding fact of my life is that I was always around women since I was a kid. As a boy, when you’re in that type of living situation, you see at an early age, the effect women can have in your life. The things that women bring to your life are at times displayed in grand and sweeping ways. In other ways, and seemingly most often, it’s the little things they do that impact a man in the most important and emotional way.

When I was a boy, I had a very hot temper when I played sports. I never got mad at anybody else, just at myself if I screwed up. I had a lot of talent when I did any sport I attempted. When I screwed up, and I screwed up enough times, it would always lead to me throwing a crying, frustration driven tantrum. I hated doing it, but at the time, I accepted that was the way for me to get through it. All of that changed when I was playing baseball one Saturday afternoon for my New Hope Baseball league team.

That particular summer, I was pitching for 3 different teams. None of the individual teams knew I was pitching for other teams. This Saturday afternoon, I was throwing terribly because my arm was killing me from pitching so much. As I was struggling on the mound that Saturday afternoon, I was walking everybody, hitting everybody and losing the game for my team. Each pitch that I threw increased my frustration. Soon I lost control and started a tantrum on the mound and started that frustrated cry that you do when you get in that state. As I was in the thick of it, my mom walked out to the mound. She took the baseball from my hand, grabbed my face, wiped my tears and told me to stop doing what I was doing and that I looked ridiculous and to get it together or we were going home in front of everybody. That shook me up and smacked me back in to reality.

I still lost the game, but her simple words, words that could only be delivered by a mother to a son, resonate with me to this day. Those 30 seconds affects me to this day.

There are so many small things that women do for men. Every man should know that if not for those small things, men’s eternal struggle would be an insurmountable struggle of bad choices and inefficient methods of maximizing your time and energy. For me, and perhaps for millions of other men, the best thing that women do for men is give us the impression that there is someone out there who understands us in a way that only a woman can understand a man. What’s more important, men know that there is somebody out there that wants to care for them in a unique way.

The woman doesn’t have to be in love with you in order for that same woman to understand a man and deal with a man differently. Perhaps it’s with more compassion, or gentleness. Other times it may be more direct and brutally honest. However a woman deals with a man, the majority of the time, it is done in a way, a feminine way that appeals to a man. Granted, there are times it appeals to a man in a sexual way, but at the core of it, there’s just a sense of comfort that a man gets from a woman that he can’t get from a man. The truth of the matter is, for most men, the approval of a woman, not just sexual approval, molds a man from childhood to manhood. Men want the approval of women, more than they want the approval of men. It’s not just about sex, it’s for much more.

There are men I know that don’t trust women or see them as objects, etc. There are men out there that have been horribly hurt by women which skews their opinion of all women. I’m not in that camp. I’ve been surrounded by strong women all my life. I know what they can do. I guess I’m lucky that way.

A few days ago, I saw an elderly couple at church. As the pastor was finishing his service, I watched the woman gently stroke the back of his head, running her fingernails through her hair (I love when a woman does that). She then slowly moved her hand from his neck and down to her side. As a reflex, the man grabbed her hand gently and held it as they listened. I could tell by that interaction that they have done those movements before, probably thousands of times. It was subtle. It was gentle. It was powerful and it took less than 5 seconds. This man and woman needed this intimacy. Why did they feel the need to do that, especially after all the years together?

I’m not exactly sure, but I know what I felt. The woman needed and wanted to do that for the man. She obviously loved him, and he loved her, but it was more than that. The man needed that type of comfort at that time from someone he trusts, a woman he loves. What I was certain of what that the subtle and gentle touches each gave each other was important. The simplicity of it defined their long life together as they found comfort and peace in church that day. While I enjoyed the sermon the pastor preached to the people gathered that day, the interaction between that elderly couple was the most earthly spiritual thing I saw that day.

There are thousand other reasons why I am a big fan of women. Some grander in scope, but mostly, I know they know things that I could never know and I’m grateful that they want to share just some of their wisdom with me occasionally.

I am who I am because of the women in my life. If any man out there is honest with themselves, they probably would say the same thing.

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