Absent Nostalgia

When I was a child my father
used to mock and deride me
whenever he heard me speak to
my husband in tender terms of
'dear' and 'honey'. He was then not
yet my husband for we were both
fourteen and devoted friends
learning how to be intimate. He
was also a boy whose father was
known to mine and that led to
furtive meetings when I was
informed I was not to see him.
My parents relented when it became
clear that nothing would part us.
Terms of endearment were unknown
to my parents, but not to me. Little
did they know that the boy who 
four years later became my husband
called me 'moocow' and 'pieface',
a type of verbal play my father
would never have known how to
decipher. Misfortune took my
father to meet with the Angel of
Death when he was 54. Good fortune
saw us celebrate our 60th wedding
anniversary, and I still call him
'dear' and 'honey', and there is
no force on Earth or in the Heavens
that could convince me to regret
the years we consumed together
in love and contentment with one
another despite my father's
admonishments to the contrary.