Lately yours truly has been spending a lot of time walking the streets of the Third Ward of Winona, Minnesota where I’m campaigning to fill the seat vacated by my late wife, Deb.  This involves knocking literally on thousands of doors and having hundreds of conversations with potential voters.  It takes a lot of time, but it is a great experience.

You meet all kinds of people; young and old, orderly and disorderly, rich and poor, happy and sad, friendly and grumpy.  And once in a while, you meet a woman with a bald head.

When she answers the door I know she has cancer.  I ask her what’s up and she usually gives me the general details; the type of cancer, how advanced it is, and what the prognosis might be.  Usually the prognosis is grim.  She smiles the brave smile; a smile that crossed Deb’s face many times.

I know she is deeply saddened, but wants to conceal it as well as she can.  I know how sad she is.  I’ve been in the shadow of the sadness of a good woman.  I know how much she wishes she could have just a few more years with the grandchildren, with her husband, with her siblings.

Isn’t it part of the natural order that men should experience adversity instead of women?  Women; they are our queens, our hope, our happiness.  I ask myself why our women are leaving us so often.  They are our women for God’s sake…our women!

And then the best time comes as I put my now meaningless campaign brochure back into my pocket.  I look her in the eye and say to her….”Can I give you a hug?”

These wonderful women never refuse; they love hugs.  For just a few seconds the whole world stops.  Two strangers embrace and all the love comes to the surface.  This is one of the great wonders of the world.   And as Deb’s doctor once told me, “After all Don, we are put on this earth really for only one reason…to love one another.”

If you have a woman in your household, give her a hug.  Tell her how much you love her.  She will never forget it and you will never regret it!