May 1955

They were both young, very young by our standards. He was just shy of his 22^nd birthday, tall – 6’2”, and reed thin, barely 165, with wavy brown hair. She was petite, 5’2” or 3”, maybe 105 lbs. with auburn hair worn the way girls her age – just 20 – wore it then. It was their wedding day and he wore a white tuxedo jacket; she had on a white lace wedding dress. And the sun shone with them standing in front of the grayish-white stone church and the photographer snapped the photo, and they looked like they really weren’t sure what they were doing. That’s just the way it was back then.

            The church had more history than they did. The church was there before the country declared its independence from England. George Washington and his bedraggled group more commonly known as the Continental army had stayed on the church grounds during the 1776 New Jersey campaign. Author James Fenimore Cooper had visited the church cemetery to see the final resting place of the last Mohican who is buried there. None of that mattered on that sunny May Saturday in 1955. It was there, on that day that they took vows to each other. It was there their lives were inalterably entwined.

            I see their picture in my mind’s eye everyday. That young couple is my parents. This year, in a few short weeks, they’ll celebrate 59 years of marriage. They have buried parents and one of their sons. They sat silently in court while their other son was sentenced to prison. They have known joys, like holding their grandchildren for the first time, and disappointment and heartache I can only now begin to appreciate. Through it all there was always the two of them; no matter what, no matter how difficult or discouraging, just the two of them.

            A woman who recently came across my musing on the blog asked me if it was difficult being so candid with what I wrote most weeks. It causes me trouble sometimes I told her. Like when the gang leader’s sister came across the blog and visited him and asked why he was still “in the life.” Honesty is a funny thing. We all say we want honesty, but we really don’t. One of the most profound things I ever read was this:

            “Acknowledging the fragmentation of my life is the single most painful and difficult admission I’ve ever made. It’s also the most freeing and hopeful thing I’ve ever spoken about myself.”

            Like the writer of those words, I had to accept the reality of my broken, flawed life to start living new. It was in honestly assessing myself that I knew I didn’t have to be perfect. It was at that point that I understood what the Psalmist meant when he said, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” I’ve thought about that a lot as I have thought about her and her remarriage and my failure as a husband, and our failure as a couple.

            In my youthful arrogance I thought my mother and father knew nothing of love, and emotion, and intimacy. I was a fool. I knew nothing of the responsibility real love entailed.

            I remember the exact moment I met her, what she wore, how she smiled at me, how my heart skipped a beat. I knew that night I wanted to be with her. I said “forever.” Looking back, I know I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t willing to surrender I for we … and neither was she.

            I read a piece by an older minister. He wrote, “In the end, marriage is a crucifixion, and you’re not meant to survive it. Rather, this life you’ve been given with another human is meant to transform you – to raise you to new life as you die to self and ego. No, it isn’t easy. It’s messy, and difficult, and at times unpredictable. But then again, what isn’t?

            All those years together and never once did we say, what is best for us? It was her dreams and her career and my acquiescence and then my subterfuge to make up for my disappointment. It was always he and she and never we. It was a pattern, a roadmap that led to our ending. And those vows we shared, no one “really” means them, do they?

            Then there are my parents, a couple I laughed at for idiosyncrasies and bickering and annoying way they’d kiss before they would head in different directions. And I hear my mother tell me, “our life hasn’t been easy, but we stuck it out. We did this together.” She says that and I am both awestruck and ashamed because I failed so miserably.

            59 years. They’re sailing the Mediterranean this fall. And she is remarrying a “nice” man; saying the same words she said to me all those years ago, the same words my parents said in ’55. Do you ever get over the heartbreak and the failure? The Psalmist says you do. I’ll take him at his word. It’s May 1955, and I see that picture in my mind’s eye and I wish she knew the pain and loss I feel; and I wish I knew what my parents know.