Author
Catherine Castle shares with us a sweet story of love and a sneak peek at one of
her books on this Valentine’s Day. –Linda Lee Greene Author/Artist
Determining
Mr/Mrs Right-for-Your-Life
from Catherine
Castle
How do you know it you’ve met Mr. or Mrs. Right—the one
true love of your life?
Now
that’s the question of the century. Sometimes you know right away with a “zing”
goes the heart strings. Sometimes you don’t know until certain dramatic things
happen in your life. And sometimes true love is revealed only after the loved
one is gone. I saw all three of these in the lives of my parents.
Let
me tell you a story about my parents, who apparently got it right.
My
parents met after WWII, right before Dad was going to enlist in the Foreign
Legion. He came to visit Mom’s uncle. Mom peeked at Dad from behind a newspaper
during that visit and her interest in him was obvious enough that he asked her
on a date. Their courtship was a short one. They met in October and by
Thanksgiving the following month they were married. Dad’s family said to Mom,
“Don’t marry him. You don’t know what you’re getting into. He drinks. He
gambles. He carouses around with his brother.” But ‘Love is blind.’ And Mom
didn’t listen to the naysayers. That’s the “zing” goes the heart strings
moment.
The
dramatic happening for my folks occurred early on in their marriage. True to
the warning of his family, Dad did drink and gamble and run around with his
brother, leaving Mom at home with two small children. After about two
years of this kind of behavior, Mom gave Dad an ultimatum. “It’s me and your
daughters or carousing with your brother. You can’t have both. Choose what you
love most,” she told him. Dad chose us. He walked away from his old life and
built a life around his family.
It
took the remainder of their life together to discover the last expression of
love.
Dad
was a meat and potatoes kind of guy. Dinner fare for us was always a meat,
which ran the gamut from pickled pigs’ feet and cow brains to fried chicken and
smoked pork. Some form of potatoes (usually fried) sat next to the meat
platter. Then green beans and another vegetable filled out the menu. We’d often
have bread, too, from sliced store-bought bread to homemade cornbread or
biscuits. Dessert was rare and saved for company. Without fail, meat, potatoes,
green beans and a second vegetable appeared on every dinner table.
No
matter what combination of those four dishes Mom put on the dinner table, Dad
ate it. He wasn’t choosy about what meat Mom served, or how the potatoes were
fixed, or what alternate veggie she served beside the green beans. He ate it
all, and as I remember it, with gusto. In all the years I sat at the table with
them, eating Mom’s down-home meals I never once heard Dad complain about or
critique Mom’s cooking. I thought he loved everything she made, even though I
always didn’t.
Then,
in 1987, Mom died of complications from pneumonia. After the funeral Dad was
wandering around the house saying, “You girls should take this, or this. It
belonged to your mom and I can’t look at it now that she’s gone.” We
obliged him and took the offered items, because, as I’ve since learned, guys
can’t deal with looking at stuff that belonged to their deceased wives.
When
Dad walked into the pantry where Mom kept all her home-canned goods, he said,
“Take all these green beans home with you.”
“I
can’t take food off your table, Dad,” I protested.
“I
hate green beans,” he replied.
I’m
sure my mouth dropped open, because it still does when I think of this story.
“But you ate them almost every night,” I said. “If you hate them why did you
eat them?”
“Because
your mother served them.”
For
thirty-seven years and four months, my father ate a hated vegetable every day
just because Mom served it. And he ate it without letting anyone at the table
know he hated green beans. Now, if that isn’t true love, I don’t know what is.
Ain’t
love grand?
Catherine loves to laugh at herself and loves to write
comedy. Check out her award-winning romantic comedy, with a touch of drama, A
Groom for Mama.
Beverly Walters is dying, and before
she goes she has one wish—to find a groom for her daughter. To get the deed
done, Mama enlists the dating service of Jack Somerset, Allison’s former
boyfriend.
The last thing corporate-climbing Allison wants is a husband. Furious with
Mama’s meddling, and a bit more interested in Jack than she wants to admit,
Allison agrees to the scheme as long as Mama promises to search for a cure for
her terminal illness.
A cross-country trip from Nevada to Ohio ensues, with a string of disastrous
dates along the way, as the trio hunts for treatment and A Groom For
Mama.
Multi-award-winning author Catherine Castle has
been writing all her life. A former freelance writer, she has over 600 articles
and photographs to her credit (under her real name) in the Christian and
secular market. Now she writes sweet and inspirational romance. Her debut
inspirational romantic suspense, The Nun and the Narc, from Soul Mate
Publishing, has garnered multiple contests finals and wins.
Catherine loves writing, reading, traveling, singing, watching movies, and the
theatre. In the winter she loves to quilt and has a lot of UFOs (unfinished
objects) in her sewing case. In the summer her favorite place to be is in her
garden. She’s passionate about gardening and even won a “Best Hillside Garden”
award from the local gardening club.
Learn more about Catherine Castle on her website and blog. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to check out Catherine’s Amazon author page and her Goodreads
page. You can also find Catherine
on Stitches
Thru Time and the SMP authors blog
site.
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