Monetary Wealth

Every time I fold towels, I smile.

I have enough bath SHEETS for my family and any guests.  That is how I know I'm wealthy.  I've had bath towels, of course, but bath sheets are a luxury I could never have imagined affording.  Today as I was folding, and grinning, I contemplated what other "signs" that say I'm wealthy.  My husband wouldn't agree that we have any excess funds at all, but he would be very wrong.  We may not have money lying around, but we have the privilege of redirecting things should an emergency occur.

When I met my husband, he had been single for 37 years.  He lived at home through college and moved out to Ontario from Saskatchewan at 23 or so.  He was fully educated, very qualified, had virtually no debt.  To me, that reads "came from a wealthy family."  We met in mid 1999 while he was living in Toronto and I was raising my girls in Ravenswood, West Virginia.  He had transit, a car, a bike, and taxi money.  I was driving a car my dad gave me in a town that didn't have a taxi, let alone a transit system.  He was buying his underwear at Hudson's Bay, which is sort of like Macy's.  He didn't even know Canada HAD WalMarts, let alone shopped at them.  He ate out most of the time, had one set of dishes for when he didn't, and wore the same thing to work every day-or at least a copy of it.

A year later he had a wife, two stepdaughters, and a baby on the way.  He had paid a great deal of

money for my immigration, our wedding, and a fabulous honeymoon-not to mention my diamond.  The day we got engaged, I was visiting Toronto and we were out to lunch.  He proposed, I said yes, and that evening we went ring shopping.  We walked into the store and there were diamonds everywhere.  It was almost blinding.  I looked at him for direction, the salesman looked at us eagerly, and my husband said, "Pick out anything you like."

Both the salesman and I nearly fell over.  In reality, he simply had no clue what a ring costs, but in my mind he was the most amazing, generous guy I had ever known.  I'd never had any kind of engagement ring before, and in fact I had purchased the rings for both husband and wife in my two previous marriages.  I looked and looked while the guys looked on.  I chose one, and they went to another room to choose a diamond size and make financial arrangements.  To be fair, I was not extravagant.  I knew I would not be happy with something flashy or heavy.  I chose a lovely design and Doug had them put  a .75 carat diamond in it.  It was exactly right.  I don't know how much it cost, but when he put it on his Amex and we walked out with a temporary "brass and glass" version while they CUSTOM MADE mine, and I don't really remember much about the rest of the evening.  All I could think of was him putting the ring on his Amex.  Back then, at least I think so, personal Amex accounts had to be paid in full each month.  That meant that within 30 days or so, this man could put his hands on over a thousand dollars; and he didn't bat an eye.

We had a small wedding in a church (also a first for me) and a reception on a chartered boat.  Yes, a sit down dinner for a couple dozen while cruising Lake Ontario at sundown in August.  We then drove our new car (actually new, not just new to us) around the US east of the Mississippi for two weeks.  It was an amazing bonding experience.  We drove across the Chesapeake Bay bridge, through the pines in Alabama, through a forest fire in Arkansas, took a carriage ride in St Louis, and ended the trip in Ohio where  my mom was keeping my girls for us.  Doug paid for the whole thing.

Six months later he was paying for my surgery to have our son.  JD was a surprise, as I had had a tubal ligation in the 1980's. I certainly did not expect to be delivering another baby at 39 years old, in a foreign country.  I had friends who were becoming grandmothers!  He's now almost 19 and still at home, so our food budget is through the roof!

Twenty years after our first meeting, I'm still a small town girl.  My idea of "comfortable" is never worrying if the electric has been shut off.  It's binge shopping at DollarTree.  It's a new coat every ten years.  We are beyond comfortable.  Doug says we are middle class.  We have everything we need and most of what we want.  We travel and sometimes go to premium resorts.  We can help our kids if needed and spoil our granddaughters.

That, my friends, is wealthy.