My wife is a quarter-Vulcan and still looks a little younger than me … but she had been a fleet officer for almost eleven years when I was born. I'm 49, and I've been in business for 31 years … the gap in our ages. She is 80, and has been a soldier – a full fleet admiral in semi- but only semi-retirement – for 60 years.
That is also to say that when I met her at age 24, thinking she was 35 – although in my head I knew that was too young to be an admiral – she was already 55, and so superior and hardened a soldier that she was leading a fleet on a mission that she knew she would probably not return from.
Her back story was that she had lost the man she loved at 20 years old. She had made a fabulous career in the fleet, fabulous in writing, fabulous in style … but she was willing to go on to the next life in the cause of her duty … her duty for which she had lived on for 35 years.
And then I showed up and Kirked harder than any member of my family beside Cousin J.T. had ever Kirked in history, because I knew nothing about anything except that I had to make her my wife and the mother of my children, and if I had to feed every gem-jelly in the Cnidaria Nebula to keep Admiral Vlarian Triefield from having to go risk her life to eradicate them and keep them from eating every ship sailing by, then that was what I was going to do.
Still, the things I did not account for … my wife was already 35 years into being a soldier in mindset. Now, in her off time, she was a fabulously glamorous woman, and her jewelry and clothing sets were admired by women across the galaxy – and with all that, she is an ageless beauty, her stock of African American, Viking-Anglo-Saxon, and Vulcan serving her well.
I always remember the fact that when we met, with all those captains and commodores and admirals wanting to see if they could at last “comfort” V.T. on the last night before her last mission, she left with me … and she had this huge and gorgeous wrap to cover her bare and magnificent shoulders when we were about to leave … and she let no one but me help her put that on and touch those shoulders.
I was sprung then and I am still sprung now. I admit it. Fools falling in love have nothing on Kirks falling in love.
The point I was trying to make before I got carried away thinking about those shoulders: V.T. had known little of a man's tenderness in her adult life, and the fact that she sensed my genuine love for her and my character as a young man was a big act of faith for her. Once we were married, she just continued walking by faith … the soldier made a dutiful wife and mother, without much difficulty. V.T. is fabulously competent and adaptable: very little is difficult except …
Getting V.T out of “soldier” mode proved to be that thing that was my special calling in her life … I created space for her to just be a woman, loved. My penchant for buying stupidly expensive gifts on layaway for YEARS was always appreciated … but simple things that just showed that I saw her and understood her style and her tastes on a small scale meant a great deal to her as well.
For Mother's Day in the 19th year of our marriage, I managed to do both things at the same time!
Thrift stores abound in the galaxy, and once I was back to work after a year off due to injury, I resumed a practice from the early years of my marriage … my wife had worked the simple jewelry I had given her way back at the beginning into uniform regulation by using it to bind up her hair since the day I had given it to her, and that told me she loved the thoughtfulness more than the dollar value. Not that everything you find in a thrift store is fit for an admiral, but sometimes, treasures abound.
On Earth, there is no way the headdress above or the body suit that matched with it –
– would have arrived at anybody's thrift store, but on Dhuull 3 they cared nothing for gold thread. Thus and so, an entire royal hamper of clothes from a nearby planet had been lost, and the contents had found their way to that store.
I had seen the news about the loss while still recuperating at home – that had been one of the things that had encouraged me to get back to work on time, so that by the first week of May I could be on the hunt for the missing hamper of clothes.
I found it, paid for all of it, and reached out to the royal family in question. They were delighted to hear from me, assured me that the items had already been replaced, and asked me what reward I would like.
I explained who my wife was, and asked if I might have the headdress and matching body suit as a Mother's Day gift for her.
The royal family was impressed.
“You are not dressed like a king,” the king said to me, “but you have the heart of one, sir, to have captured the hand of Vlarian Triefield in marriage. It will be no shame to us to have the admiral enjoy wearing one of my cousin's attires from last season – it is as good a use as any.”
I arrived home early in the morning on Mother's Day, so early that the career soldier was stirring, but not yet awake … I put the package containing the body suit and headdress down on the bed in my spot and went to take a shower, letting her discover my Mother's Day gift to her with the little account of my running from thrift store to thrift store and then negotiating with a whole royal family “so that MY queen is the best dressed mother at the brunch I promised I'd get home in time to go to.”
My son Marcus knew what was going on even though he was just eight then.
“All right, Dad – score!” he said. “Mom looked WAY better than all of the other mothers there – I mean, she always looks good, but wow, Dad – that's amazing!”
Baby Laurence just liked playing with the patterns in his mother's outfit when not pulling on my nose and lips and ears, and my three daughters Marcia (14), Valerie (11), and Laura (5) were all happy in their purple and yellow looking like chips off their mother's gorgeous block.
Of course, not everyone was happy that “baby Kirk” was Kirking so hard … those admirals and commodores and captains were not the same as they had been 19 years earlier, but they had similar ideas and were still mad that I was leaving no room for them to offer temptation to this glowing, gorgeous woman who was mine, recognized in the midst of our healthy, beautiful children.
V.T. was 74 years old … looking like the whole spring. Part of that was her Vulcan heritage. Part of that was 19 years of being well-loved, the best gift I could give the mother of my children.
One fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, two gorgeous variations -- beauty fit for any mother on this special day!