My Relationship with Crib

The Game of Crib

(January 17, 2018)

“15/2…15/4….15/6….and a pair of 4’s for 8”

Haha!

Words like that used to drive me CRAZY!!!!!!

I heard them every night for hours as the guys got together in our home and played cards, specifically crib. I had no CLUE what they were doing, gathered around some oddly shaped and coloured board with little pegs, or why they did it so intensely, for so long, and I had no interest in being enlightened, not that anyone offered to enlighten me at any time 😉

I liked a bit of solitaire, and I enjoyed Scrabble and other word games, but cards weren’t really my thing. I was more of a bookworm. My mind was actively pursuing learning of all kinds. I liked to debate and challenge my own knowledge.

I was a new wife, age 32, a woman amongst men. The only woman on the small island we lived on, to be exact. They were very traditional men. I should have other things to do in the kitchen! Making and serving coffee. Making goodies to eat.

However, I was a bit of a women’s lib lady, a teacher, an avid reader, and not your traditional housewife. I had taken my time to get married. I did take care of the home, of course, but I had more on my mind than cooking, baking, cleaning and card games. I did those practical things, yes, but I considered myself a bit of an intellectual as well. I needed a challenge. I thrived on intellectual stimulation.

I remember when I first sat with the men and entered into the conversation on a topic I enjoyed. Then men got quiet. One looked amused. One looked down. One looked away. My husband’s face was a study. Another man stared straight at me and said, rather pointedly, “Don’t you have something to do in the kitchen?” All of them smirked. I left, more than a little astonished at the audacity of a guest in my own home and surprised at the lack of support from my husband.

Well, I was to hear “15/2….15/4” for a good many years more, until my husband passed away, in fact. He loved the game and played whoever he could with visiting men friends. I put up with the constant lingo, though it was annoying and grated on my ears.

After my husband passed on in 2006, I did not hear any mention of it again. That is, until fairly recently. I was surprised, no less than 12 years later, when a male friend and companion asked if I knew how to play and offered to teach me.

What?????? MEEEE? Learn to play CRIB????

HAH! You’ve got to be kidding! He WASN’T….

I was told that it was an absorbing and challenging game and that I should learn. I considered it. Hmmmm. OK. I would give it a fair chance. A bit reluctantly, I began my lessons with him. Oh my…..

I’ve had a few lessons now over the course of some weeks, and I am learning the intricacies of the game. My “teacher” is very patient in explaining the scoring combinations to me and helping me to locate them in my hand. I like that he is teaching me how to play. I think it will take me a while to learn, but he can’t wait to play me for real and beat me silly, he said tonight. Haha! 😉

It’s another one of those things, again, like hockey (that will be another blog story) that only served to annoy me about my husband while he was with me and living, that I have come to regret NOT doing with him now that he is gone.

Another reminder for me to cherish whatever I can with the one who is with me TODAY, whoever that might be. A reminder to try to understand something new and foreign to me, because it might prove to be interesting, even FUN!

Losses in life are hard and regrets are not easy to deal with. Despite all that, grief is an excellent teacher. We will learn good and worthwhile things, things that will bring both blessing and healing, repair and restoration, if we will let ourselves be schooled.

A mixture of amazement and chagrin fills me as I hear my own voice say….”15/2…..15/4…..and a pair of 2’s for 6……”

A rare opportunity to be healed and blessed, a deep, for the most part unrecognized, wound in my life to be repaired and restored. A circle of completion. A work of God, I think.

Thank you, Frank ❤

AJ ❤