The note on the headboard of the bed is simple, “Kay, I love you; I always have; I always will; Phil.”

But there was more to it than the words on the paper; it had more to do with who Phil and Kay are as people and as a couple than just some sentimental, sappy note written in the emotional bliss of marital happiness.

With Phil and Miss Kay, one wouldn’t expect anything less.

“I was asleep on my bed, looked up and saw Miss Kay looking at me,” Phil says. “She said, ‘Phil do you love me?’ I said, ‘Yep.’ She said, ‘Write it down.’ She’s standing over my bed. I said, ‘Okay, I’ll write it down.’ Next morning, got up to get my coffee, there was a piece of paper with a pen, and I said, ‘That woman is gonna hold me to this.’ I wrote down, Kay, I love you; I always have; I always will; Phil. It’s been many, many years ago, but she taped that to the headboard right above her head. So every time I get into bed I look over and see that note.”

As Phil finishes the story, Miss Kay interjects, “So that helps remind you of what you wrote yourself right?” She says, her mouth open and laughing in a playful, joking manner.

“And that’s when I realized that women are very strange creatures,” says Phil in his dry wit.

Their relationship, which began when Kay was 14 and Phil was 16 (that’s when they began dating), has survived high school, college, some pretty dark times (as we talk about in the main story), and the good times (with business flourishing).

“We’re still here,” says Phil, as he throws his hand up and messes with a piece of paper.

“High school sweethearts,” says Miss Kay grinning.

Then the conversation goes back and forth as if they were on the show.

Says Al: “High school quarterback and the head cheerleader.”

Miss Kay: “I wasn’t the head, I was just a cheerleader.”

Al: “You were at the top of the pyramid.”

Phil: “Oh you were the head cheerleader.”

Miss Kay: “I was the shortest cheerleader.”

Al: “You were at the top of the pyramid, Ma, back in those days.”

Miss Kay: “That’s right.”

Says Phil, as he slaps his knee emphatically: “Miss Kay is an exact replica of Sarah, Abraham’s wife: kind, gentle-spirited—”

Miss Kay: “And I call you Master.”

Phil: “Which is a great woman in God’s sight, you are her daughters if you do what’s right. Don’t give way to fear. That’s Miss Kay. She’s like Sarah. She treats me like a King. She literally treats me like her Master. And I don’t force her to, she’s just that type of woman.”

Miss Kay: “I’m glad you didn’t say I was a Proverbs 31 woman, because I sure don’t like getting up early.”

Their relationship, full of humor, full of love, full of family.

Exactly what the show portrays, and just the way God intended.

By Brett Honeycutt

Brett Honeycutt is the managing editor at Sports Spectrum magazine.