Please welcome my beautiful and loving mother, Donna...
Two weeks ago my husband and I saw our youngest child and only daughter marry the man she’s loved for the last ten years. She was married here at the home where she grew up, on a warm day at summer’s end - gathering all the people most important to her in one place. There was singing and dancing and joy and laughter. My heart melted as my daughter, the beautiful bride, took the arm of her father - my husband of almost 40 years. They walked towards us through the grass as the musicians played One Hand, One Heart, from her favorite musical, West Side Story.
Make of our hands
One hand
Make of our hearts
One heart
Unlike today’s couples, who wisely tend to marry later, I was a young bride. I met my future husband at age 15. We started dating at age 17, attended our high school prom together, married at 20, and had our first child at 23. Last month we celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary.
When you marry so young, the difficulties in staying together often stem from immaturity - and as I look back, I realize just how immature we were. But the strength lies in the fact that you’ve already shared so much; common background, school, and many memories, before ever starting your married life. Our shared experiences fostered Friendship before Romance. It’s this friendship that has helped us over the bumps common to all marriages. Romance will flame and flicker and sometimes even die out due to neglect, but a friend will understand and help to build the fire once more.
I was a child of the times when I married in 1973, and an early, fervent believer in the Women’s Movement. I loved this man very much and wanted to marry him, but I was determined not to be one of those women in Betty Friedan’s book who felt they had to be married and then lost themselves. I was determined to keep my individuality and personhood. Our wedding ceremony was sprinkled liberally with like-minded quotes from Kahlil Gibran. “Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone; even as the strings of a lute are alone, though they quiver with the same music.” “Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from one cup.” “It is out of the resonance between individuality and union that love… is born and reborn.” And so, our marriage was launched on the premise of preserving our separateness and individuality. Unfortunately, our immaturity translated idealism into a need to be right or to force a perspective. It resulted, not surprisingly, in dramatic, impassioned arguments that could last for days, and hurt feelings that were nursed way beyond ridiculous.
Make of our lives
One life
Day after day
One life
After a few years we grew up a little and began to mesh more. Our divisions became less noticeable. The couple became a family. A team. A unit unto itself. An insult to your husband becomes an insult to yourself. Accomplishments of your spouse become your family’s accomplishments, and we all become cheerleaders for one another. Now, after forty years, (much to the embarrassment of our children) my husband and I tend to show up more often than not wearing the same colors and similar styles, even though we dressed separately.
What’s changed over the years is that now we let most of the minor issues stay minor issues. We don’t sweat the small stuff or have to prove each point like we did starting out. Arguments will last a few minutes – even seconds, instead of a few days. Moments later, we’ll find ourselves laughing and discussing a completely different topic. William James is famously quoted, "The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook." After forty years together and knowing a person so well, this actually involves very little conscious effort.
We continue to have our individual interests and separate curiosities that enrich us personally and as a couple, but what would have shocked and amazed my 20-year-old self, who was determined to keep her individuality at all costs, was the discovery that the larger share of our happiness lies in our shared life. We find it more fun to share an experience than experience it alone. Any experience. A movie. Travel. A funny story. A sunset. First it’s just more fun to share. Then it’s important. Then necessary. Finally, it becomes food for your soul.
My husband has always been a notoriously loud snorer. (yes, we know all about sleep apnea…) The thing is, no one can sleep in the same room with him. Except me. I’ve fallen asleep to his personal roar for so many years that it’s become my soothing ‘white noise’. So much so that when he’s away on business trips, I can’t get to sleep - because that comforting rhythm of breath and heartbeat that I love … is missing.
After forty years we are starting to resemble this old, gnarled tree in our front yard growing from two root systems. We began our marriage as separate, strong, young saplings, determined to claim our space. Then over the years we found the amount of individual space we thought we required shrank. We grew and reached out, provided support, leaned against, and intertwined - until now it is difficult to see which part of ourselves began with which person. We’ve become that tree that started life as Two, but grew up as it grew together, until it now towers as an older, yet stronger, One.
If you are able to persevere through the difficulties of childrearing – trips to the hospital for broken bones (or in Shannon’s case, a broken nose from a back handspring gone awry), nights lying awake hoping your high school kid comes home safe and sober, college applications and acceptances – you’ll finally hit the Empty Nest. You’ll feel the loss acutely, but eventually it gives way to a new sense of peace. Suddenly you have time for each other again. You have time to appreciate and be grateful for the life you’ve built together and the people who are a part of that life. Happiness for us is watching the sunrise together over a mug of fresh coffee before the day begins. Barring major life crises, you find that your life has become easier (unless you’re planning the home wedding of your only daughter….). You discover the quiet joy – and peace – of just being together; of your One Life.
Shannon and Hal are just beginning that one life together. As Lia so eloquently described in the very first guest blog, life will be the same – yet subtly different, after publically pledging their love in marriage. At the end of 40 years, if they work at it and are very, very lucky, they may be surprised to find their life has amazingly and gloriously been transformed. And then the two shall be as One.
Now it begins
Now we start
One hand
One Heart
* * * * *
“One Hand, One Heart” from West Side Story.
Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
{Image via The Vintaquarian}
