Maybe I didn't love you

Quite as often as I could have.

They're right you know. When you have a heart attack it DOES feel like an elephant is sitting on your chest. The pain is excruciating. I actually was happy when I finally passed out. After Sharon had made me chew up and swallow an aspirin and got me propped up while she called 911. It was due to her efforts that I'm laying in this hospital bed with tubes running in and out of me instead of on a cold metal gurney in the hospital morgue.

Maybe I didn't treat you

Quite as good as I should have.

Oh, Sharon is my wife of 23 years by the way. This is where I'm supposed to tell you how we met and how gorgeous she is and what our first time having sex was like and all the rest of it. Well, I'm not going to do that. I mean really, our meeting was over two decades ago. How stale is that for news? And as for our sex life, it's none of your business, except I will say that I've always been pretty darned satisfied. I hope she has been too.

Sharon is no Greek Goddess. She doesn't have long blonde hair and a killer body and legs that go on forever. She's a bit short and she's put on some weight over the years and if you look closely you can see the stretch marks from the three kids we have. Her butt's a little big and her breasts sag a little. So what? I ain't no Adonis myself; just a middle-aged man fighting middle-aged spread and hoping when I brush my hair in the morning that no more of it's fallen out.

Mind you I think she's gorgeous. She IS beautiful and if you try to tell me different or laugh at her I'll do my damndest to knock your block off. The only thing is...

If I made you feel second best

Girl I'm sorry I was blind.

I came around a little a couple of times after the bypass surgery that saved my life. I wasn't fully conscious but I knew whose hand was holding mine. And when I did wake all the way up Sharon was asleep in a chair beside the bed with her head resting on the mattress where I could touch her hair. And I thought how lucky I am to have her and how beautiful she is and it hit me. When was the last time I told her those things? Oh sure when we were dating and when we were newly-weds, but in the last twenty years how often have I reminded her of how special she is to me?

You were always on my mind;

You were always on my mind.

I think about how much I was on the road for all those years. It seemed the bosses were always sending me to fix this problem or that. I'd work so hard and then stagger back to my hotel room and collapse into bed, hardly stopping to grab a bite, much less call Sharon. And she was balancing her own job and the kids; working mom and soccer mom both. Yet when I came home she always had a smile and a kiss for me.

Maybe I didn't hold you

All those lonely, lonely times.

There was the night of our twentieth anniversary. We had elaborate plans. Then I got caught up in a computer crash at the home office that could have put us out of business if it wasn't solved. I barely had time to call her and tell her I would be late. We worked our asses off to fix the problem. Then it was done and only then did I realize it was three in the morning. I got home and found Sharon asleep on the couch; still all dressed up in her formal evening wear, needing only to slip on the heels beside her to be ready to go. How many times did I disappoint her like that over the years? Too many to count.

And I guess I never told you

I'm so happy that you're mine.

We had planned a getaway to Japan in conjunction with a business conference that I was attending there. I promised her I had handled every detail. Every detail except that I forgot to check to see if her passport was current. It wasn't and she couldn't go. Some might say that wasn't my fault, that she should have caught that. But I was the one who grandly assured her I had everything covered.