I always appreciated Janie, at least I thought I did, no I’m sure I did, but what I didn’t fully appreciate was the amount of time it took to do all the things she did. Since she is gone, I have developed an appreciation for women that I never had before. By that I mean I don’t know how she did everything and still had time left over for me. I often find myself doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen at 11 or 12 o’clock at night, and I say to myself, “Something is wrong here, I should be getting into bed instead of walloping the pots and pans.

Where did the evening go to?” The bad part is that I say that a lot.

There are differences to be sure. Janie used the dishwasher, and I don’t. The reason I don’t is that with just me I don’t dirty that many dishes unless I bake a pie or cake, and that’s a problem. I have plenty of plates and knives and forks, but there are a lot on utensils I use that there is only one of. Consequently, I find that before the dishwasher is loaded I need something that is in it that is still dirty. I am going to have to develop some kind of a system, though, because I think I am getting dishpan hands. Maybe I should buy a few more utensils.

I remember when Janie and I were young and we had three children at home. Janie took care of the children, she kept the house clean and neat, she kept our clothes washed, she cooked, she washed dishes, and she still had time to snuggle up against me eating popcorn and watching TV before going to bed. I know she had a washer and dryer, and a dishwasher, but I still don’t know how she did it.

Janie didn’t want a dishwasher at first, said she didn’t need one, so I didn’t install one in the kitchen when I built our first house. After a couple of years of her taking care of all of us, however, I arrived home from work one evening and sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor was a dishwasher. Janie said, “I want it installed there,” indicating the cabinet she wanted removed and replaced by the dishwasher. We looked at each other and I told her I thought she didn’t want a dishwasher. I was informed that she had changed her mind as all women have a right to do. I installed it. I don’t mind cooking. I don’t even mind baking an apple pie or a cake from scratch. What I don’t like is washing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen afterward. I can’t say that I actually hate it, but I don’t like it, and Janie did that for 58 1/2 years without once complaining. Boy, was she great or what?

I remember when I started my first business back in the mid-’60s. I went from making a tool room foreman’s wages down to making practically nothing for a while, so I got a part-time job working for Muehlhausen’s six hours a night, and since the kids were all in school, Janie took a job at the TV cable office to help out. All I had to do was work 14 hours a day, while Janie worked eight hours a day plus doing everything else, and our marriage not only held together through this type of stress, it got stronger. Our respect for each other grew.

Well, that was all a long time ago. The children are all gone from home now, and I live alone in the third house I built for Janie and myself. It’s funny about houses, when two people who love one another live in them, they are a home, but when one of those people move on to the next life, all that is left is just the house they lived in together.

Perhaps that is why doing the dishes is such a chore. Maybe it’s just doing them all alone with no one to talk to. But I’ll tell you one thing, and it’s this: Most women don’t get enough credit for what they do.

Now I’ve got buttons coming loose and coming off. Last night while I was watching Fox News I sewed a couple of buttons that were getting loose, and I replaced a couple that were gone. I had to buy myself a sewing kit and thread and needles. How do you like that? I don’t like it at all.

Well, widowers have to do a lot of things they never thought of doing, and most of them they won’t like doing too well. But if they are like me, they will be thinking to themselves of how their wives did these tasks for years and years without complaining. And they will decide in their loneliness that they should have bought roses more often, and in their solitude, they will remember hundreds of times when they should have been gentler and more appreciative. I guess that’s our lot.

• Joe Bowyer is a columnist for the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com.