The perfect Christmas tree is the one you’ve got.

Same goes for husbands. The perfect husband is the one you’ve got.

(This is also true of wives, I’m guessing.)

The perfect spouse is the one who, once upon a time, showed up and said I do on the same day you managed to show up and say, I do. Yes, I do. Till death do us part and all that.

Death does, eventually, us part. That’s part of the bargain. After my mother died, I found among her things a torn and yellowed copy of a poem: “One or the other must leave, / One or the other must stay. / One or the other must grieve . . . ”

The Things That Annoyed Me About Jon

My father wasn’t perfect. My mother knew this.

Jon wasn’t perfect either.

I’ve written a lot of nice things about my husband in the months since his death. So many that I began to worry that my readers might be taking me for a Pollyanna where marriage is concerned.

So I started a list the other day of all the things that annoyed me about Jon. The plan was to cite them here to round out this story.

Unfortunately, I didn’t write down my piques as they occurred to me. And now I’ve forgotten what they were.

Widowed: Perfect Husband. Perfect Christmas Tree

The point is, could I have found a better husband if I’d held out another year or two? Could I have found the perfect husband?

Same thing at the Christmas tree lot the other day. I spotted what looked like the perfect tree. Small enough to pick up with one hand. Big enough to wow the grandchildren. Full enough to suggest abundance. Sparse enough to make way for ornaments.

The perfect Christmas tree.

Perfect, that is, until I grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and turned it around. Oh, dear. A big hole in the back. Missing branches.

Not perfect.

But — too late. I’d committed to the little tree with the missing branches.

This was my tree. My 2023 Christmas tree. The one that had shown up when I needed a tree. The one I was going home with.

More about good and evil, perfection and imperfection, sin and separation at “Is Hamas Evil? Is Anybody Evil? Am I? Are You?”  And, “Simone Weil on Prayer: First, Pay Attention.”