Roll With the Changes

On August 28, I was married 40 years. Looking back on the past four decades, I feel a bit like a late-night comedian. How long ago were you married? I was married so long ago that I had a band and not a deejay. I was married so long ago, that it was before videographers. I was married so long ago, no one rented limos. I was married so long ago, that Banns of Marriage were posted for three weeks in our church bulletin. I was married so long ago, that I didn’t have a wedding registry. I was married so long ago that if someone had suggested having your wedding at a farm the way people like to do now, people would have thought you were crazy. I was married so long ago that when a bride wore a white dress down the aisle, the gossips pondered whether the bride “was worthy” of that white dress.

Yes, things have changed a lot since 1982. Some things changed and are circling back. When we got married, mortgage rates were hovering around 15% and there was a recession. Unfortunately, it looks like we’re heading for a replay of that economy.

But I’ve changed too and so has my husband. I’m a different person from the 22-year-old bride saying my vows. Not just physically, that is obvious. With each passing decade, I’ve experienced life as a different person. My mom and dad have been married for nearly 64 years, and she’s often said that you are married to different people during your marriage.

Yes, there are stages of life. I’ve been a newlywed, a young mom, a college mom, empty nester, middle-aged, grandmother, etc. I’m considerably different from who I was forty years ago. I’d like to think I’ve improved and learned a lot along the way. When I got married, I never dreamed I’d have twins, live in such a lovely home, deal with the accidental death of my young brother-in-law, become a writer, and be able to travel as much as I’ve had. My husband has journeyed through all these phases of life with me and has gone through changes of his own.

So, if we are ever-changing, how do you make a commitment to love and live with someone until death? I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and as an old married lady, I’d like to share some thoughts. When we were getting married, it was required that we go through marriage classes to get married in our church. During one of those classes, the instructor posed this question: What is the goal of marriage? We had to write down our answers in a notebook and I wrote down. “To be happy.”

I was wrong. The instructor informed us that the goal of marriage is unity. There are times in marriage when you will not be happy, sometimes due to circumstances beyond your control like sickness, misfortune, or death, and even then, you must remain united.

How do you remain united when you are both changing? I believe we’ve been able to live and love for so many years together because at my core and my husband’s, we’ve never changed. We’ve been anchored together through our beliefs, goals, convictions and in general outlook on life. We have always believed in God and have adhered to certain morals, and we’ve believed in each other. We’ve been united at the deepest level no matter what has happened. It is because of our being united that we’ve been able to enjoy the happiness that I though marriage should be when I wrote those words way back when. 

 

This column originally appeared in the September edition of Northern Connection magazine.

One Love

I had the great fortune to take a break from winter and embark on a cruise in the Caribbean at the end of January beginning of February. We stopped at 12 islands, and in addition to enjoying the feel of the sun on my face, refreshing saltwater washing over me and the warmth of powdery sand beneath my feet, I enjoyed something else—freedom.

If you have never been on a cruise, you may not know that there are people aboard, passengers and crew alike, from all over the world. In addition, the islands are inhabited by people who have mixed races of African, Dutch, Spanish, English, French and local Indians, depending upon which port you visit.

Unless they were presenting a false face to us or it was the euphoria of escaping snow, not once did the citizens of any of the islands we met stress that they despised Columbus, felt oppressed, or focused on what color skin they had or you had. We were just people. Different in skin pigment and cultural practices but just people.

Slave huts on Bonaire

But they weren’t ignorant of their history, and they showed us the impossibly austere huts on Bonaire, where slaves lived while forced to make salt. We saw the Hato Caves on Curacao and the soot from fires on the cave's ceiling left from the slaves who had hidden in there from their slave masters. In Puerto Rico, our taxi driver proudly showed us the monuments to Christopher Columbus and Ponce de Leon and told us proudly that Puerto Ricans are a mixture of Spanish, Taino Indian, African. 

In Antigua the store owners looked at us in amusement when we asked them if they knew where we could buy more sunscreen, implying do you think with my skin color I need sunscreen? 

Hato Caves

Christopher Columbus Memorial in San Juan, P.R.

Ponce de Leon Memorial, San Juan, P.R.

On board ship, it was no different. My husband explained some things about the Super Bowl to an inquisitive man from India while watching the big game, and I chatted for an hour with a man from Toronto who had immigrated to that city from Trinidad back in the 1980s. We laughed when he told me how cold his Caribbean-weight cloth pants left him when he arrived there in December.

People on board engaged in games, enjoyed music, laughed, drank, swam, conversed, held elevators doors, and dined with people who did not look like them. It was so freeing. There was no looking back to the past and all the mistakes made there. There was only now.

So, imagine my sadness when I recently interviewed a black businessman who had traveled the world and told me that he found Pittsburgh to still be very racist. I couldn’t argue with him; I don’t know. I’m not in his skin, but if it is, I’m very sad. Not only for him but for all of us.

In the Bible they often describe heaven as a wedding feast, but sometimes I think it’s more like a cruise ship where all God’s children from around the world are enjoying themselves, laughing, dancing, and feasting and the lyrics of Bob Marley are playing: “One love; One Heart. Let’s get together and feel alright.” 

This originally appeared in the March 2020 issue of Northern Connection magazine. http://northernconnectionmag.com/wherewasi/