R-E-S-P-E-C-T

FixerUpperMarriage.org/respect

Friday, December 1st, 1978

I am 3 years old and I am looking out the side door of our house into our massive garage. My dad and mom are pulling up in our red Pontiac sedan. It was built like a tank and it felt like riding in a boat. Sitting in the back seat when my dad mashed the gas, was like riding a wave or something. I think every car was like a muscle car back then.

So my dad parks the car in the garage and I am watching my mom gingerly get out of the passenger side. Soon, they are both huddled around the back seat looking at a pile of blankets. My dad carefully carries the pile of blankets up the steps in the garage that leads to the door where I am standing.  

They seem excited as he gently places the blankets on the kitchen table and starts peeling the layers back. As I stretch to look at what was inside the blankets a stunning realization hit me. I am a proud big brother to little baby girl.

As it turns out, being a big brother is harder than it looks. We did everything together but fought a lot.

One year at Christmas there was a big gift under the Christmas tree. So looking at the tag, I realize that is for both of us. We both open it together and just like a big brother I am helping my little sister with her part. Inside, there’s this grey box that smells like new plastic. On the front in big letters, the words printed say, “NINTENDO”.  It was the popular video game console of the 80s.

It came with a game called, “Super Mario Brothers”, and of course we fight about who would get to be player one. Only one person could play at a time, so you had to wait on player one to mess up! It is not like video games today where you hit the “save” button and come back later. You have three lives and when you died, you started from the beginning. So it would take a while for player one to finish sometimes. But I am a big brother, so I let her be player one because that is what big brothers do, they let their little sister go first.

Then one day, she meets this “guy”, and I am asking lots of questions because that’s what big brothers do, they protect their little sister. She starts spending time with him instead of me, but that’s OK because she was happy and that’s what big brothers do, they let their little sister be happy.

Before long, I am 24 years old and looking out the door of our church into our massive parking lot. And I am watching my little sister get into car in a wedding dress. She is leaving to live 4 hours away. That’s OK because that’s what big brothers do, they let their little sister go. 

As it turns out, being a big brother isn’t about being a big brother at all. It’s about having a little sister and what being together means to you. It’s about the way you treat each other.

Being a big brother is like being a husband. Marriage is really not about being a husband or a wife at all; it’s how you treat each other inside your marriage. To be a husband, you have to treat your wife like a wife, and your wife has to treat you like a husband.

Marriage is all about treating each other with respect.

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary respect as a verb means, “: to consider worthy of high regard : ESTEEM”

In 1965, recording artist Otis Redding released a song entitled Respect. It was about a man pleading for respect when he gets home from work every day.