She Wanted to Wear a Funny Hat
This was my wife's primary motivation to spend six years getting a nursing degree.
✒️ "Take another, but stand further back, and move more to the right, more, more, MORE!" I hate with a true passion taking my wife's 📷photo as given half the chance she'll have me at it for the whole day through.
"Another, take another. Move back further, I'll tell you when," The Dragon Lady is good at giving orders. She was a captain in the Philippine army and the way she gives orders, I wouldn't have been at all surprised to discover she commanded a firing squad.
Our children would no longer indulge her is this repetitive narcissistic pursuit. I, however, or so she tells me, took vows to love, honour and OBEY her?
Strange, although it's twenty-five years ago now, I don't remember the obey bit at all, but she is adamant it happened. Even if I did promise to obey her, I'm certain it didn't mean indulging her egotistical habits.
"There Kev, 😡 there," she would order without the slightest concern for the traffic which followed us as we drove from one scenic view and backdrop to another to take another 🤳 twenty photos of her in the same pose. She was mad about photos with her as the subject.
The advent of 📱mobile phones with high-definition cameras was a red-letter day for my Tess, but not for me. I dislike using smartphone cameras outside with a passion. Simply because with the slightest light I can't see the screen, or what I am focusing on.
"Kev, these are terrible," she criticises as she reviewed the photos I had just taken for her.
💥"Take some more, and pay attention this time."
MY groans of complaint and resistance were heard and noted, but were ignored and totally futile.
Her ongoing husband torments and constant bickering 🙂are her own rather unique way of displaying her affection for me. No one else gets to experience this unique type of domestic persecution and abuse.
Although, as we are discovering, her highly entertaining act is very 👍much appreciated by all onlookers.
The Dragon Lady certainly likes looking at her own reflection. It's her favourite pastime, and she has already worn out a number of mirrors in our home doing so.
In addition to having her photograph taken, she also loves clothes. Yes, I know, most women do, but she takes liking clothing to a completely new level.
A few years ago, we had a walk in or walk-through wardrobe fitted which not only looks impressive but also provides a comfortable home to a mountain of her clothing. The Dragon Lady made an immediate claim to 97% of the available space.
This left me, who only has a few clothes compared to her with minimum space for my dressing requirements, which was perfectly okay for me.
However, as she acquired more and more clothes, which she does on a weekly basis, she began encroaching until I am squashed and restricted to one small compartment of this giant cupboard, at the very end, and out of madam's way.
Another favourite pastime to which my marriage vows demanded compulsory enlistment is the fashion show.
Before she goes anywhere, and although I rarely accompany her, the Dragon Lady has to try on a wide selection and combination of garments 👀 looking for my approval.
Although, she always complains and doesn't always like my comments. She seems to value my opinion, as well as my strong fingers at pulling up the zip for her on tighter garments.
She certainly loves dressing up, and I can't help but laugh when while playing the dressing up game, when she makes her inevitable comment (usually to herself) and says:
🤣"I don't have a thing to wear."
After rolling about on the floor in tears for a few minutes, as this comment gets funnier every time I hear it, I usually reply, "no clothes, well, it'll never go out of fashion."
In addition to photos and clothing, the Dragon Lady also takes her work extremely seriously and over the years she has experienced a variety of different jobs in the UK.
Each seemingly linked and elevating her to the next level, and taking her closer to where she wants to be, which for a long time I had absolutely no idea or clue about. In fact, I fairly sure neither did she, but she was definitely searching for something.
Then about ten years ago, and completely out of the blue, she announced, "I'm going to attend night school this term!" ❗
😮I was stunned by this announcement.
"What subject are you planning on taking?" I asked with interest, and she ignored me, so I asked again, and in a highly irritated tone she barked back at me.
❓"I don't know."
It was an oversimplified reply that left me puzzled. It seemed to me she was actually more interested in reengaging in ongoing education than in the subject.
A few days later she announced she would be taking a course in interior design.
I didn't expect that, and it seemed as totally out of character as her announcing she would be studying nuclear fusion or Astro physics.
However, my wife is truly 🐉 formidable and over the following year she threw herself into her studies and was full of enthusiasm.
It was interesting watching her grow and immerse herself in the process of learning. The following year she became even keener on further education, and continuing her studies.
Then one day, and after huge ongoing consideration, and while speaking with me about her plans for the future, she announced she would like to become a nurse.
This came as less of a surprise.
"It's a three-year University course," she shared, looking for my support and approval.
"If you're sure it's what you want to do, then you have it," I replied. Tess was then forty-eight years old.
"I think you're never- too old to start something new," I honestly replied, and she smiled happily knowing that we were in unison.
However, what Tess had failed to realise was that before being allowed to start a university course, she would first have to achieve all the expected UK school levels and NVQ's in mathematics, English and science, etc: this required an additional three years of her life to achieve.
But she was adamant becoming a nurse was something she wanted to do.
Then, a year or so into her studied she revealed one of her motivators, and I was unsurprised to discover it was linked to clothing and her love of self-photography.
She looked forward to her degree graduation, and more than anything else having her photo taken and then hung in place of prominence at our home in her graduation a gown while wearing a mortarboard.
I should have known that dressing up and having her 📷 photo taken would have something to do with it.
In addition to keeping her existing Job, my no messing wife started her studies.
She didn't find it easy, especially at first, but true to her tenacious character, she stuck at it through thick and thin until she succeeded.
As I write this, I'm sitting just a few hundred metres from the Dragon Ladies birthplace, and where she grew up. It's a pretty two-donkey village at the south-easterly tip of Cebu in the Philippines where she decided I should spend the chilli and depressing UK winters exploring and exploiting my passion of writing.
Actually. There aren't any donkeys here, not that I've seen, anyway. I was just making a point that compared to me, and most people in the westernised world, my wife's starting point was well behind everyone else.
Painfully so, but she never complained and right from the start of her quest made up for lost time, she had my full respect. She always has.
She worked well into the night most nights, completing her alignment and preparing for examinations.
She understandably became twice as stroppy and difficult as usual, but she never slowed down once. Now she was progressing as she had learned how to learn, and she became more competent in her studies, and more confident in herself and her abilities.
👦🏻As an onlooker, I watched her grow and become a happier and more fulfilled person.
She often spoke about the future, and the eventual conclusion of her formal studies and practical training.
She knew she would have become a success when she had the photo of proof hanging on the wall of her donning a graduation gown and wearing a silly hat, and that her time was getting closer by the day, and she was excited at the prospect.
Then came covid, which put the kibosh on meetings and live celebrations. She. got two important pieces of information by email in the same delivery. The first was that she had ✔️✔️✔️✔️passed everything plus her master’s thesis with high marks.
✔️The second and more painful piece of news was due to C19 her graduation had been permanently cancelled!
I felt so sorry for her!
The look of 😔 disappointment on her face said everything which needed saying.
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