Me and the Old Man

As of today, G and I have been married for 32 years.  Funny.  Because it’s Saturday, and we weren’t married on a Saturday.  Yes, I know how time works, but it’s funny anyway.

We were married on a day that I thought was going to be the heart of spring.  But the wind was blowing and it was chill and there were no lilacs out yet.  We met with our family and friends at the Salt Lake Temple and I wore a dress my sister had made for me – soft as a cloud.  And when we came out of the temple, I wore a crown of flowers in my hair.  We posed, freezing, the ribbons on my crown blowing madly, for pictures.  We could only have a three day honeymoon because I had to go back to teaching school, and we spent the last day of it on the roof of Steve and Terry’s brand new house, trying to get it shingled before the huge storm broke overhead—laughing and serving up payback for the hours Steve had spent on our new house.  And we got soaked and ate chili.

For thirty two years, I have been married to a man of courage and vision—it takes both to make your own business, bring a new thing into the world and breathe life into it.  He does something that he loves—making music happen, capturing it, holding it between his hands and shaping it into something flawless and shimmering (assuming the performances had that potential in the first place).  For every hour he is paid, he works at least an hour, if not two – helping his clients, keeping his equipment running in good order, learning.

I can say, in all these years I have never known him not to be honest, straightforward, generous almost to a fault, trying his best to be what he feels he should be.  A really good father, a determined and selfless provider. A clever problem solver (he’s fixing the sprinklers that were decimated by the construction even as we speak – and I am keeping my fingers crossed he didn’t just blow up a bunch of pipes in the wall).  He and I did the electrical in this house, and he’s done it again in the additions.  Pretty cool.

He’s also stubborn, bossy and sometimes a little too satisfied that the way he sees things is the way any reasonable person would.  But then, I did marry a guy.

If you asked, we would both tell you that marriage is no walk in the park.  It bends you and challenges you—children exhaust you and try your limits.  I heard a General Authority (LDS) say in conference once that every so often, he will talk to married people who glowingly report that they have never had a single fight.  His conclusion: the people who say that  have never really lived together equally and intimately.  David O McKay used to take walks when he and his wife had differences of opinion.  He used to close the front door with a great deal of energy, too.  “I became very physically fit in those days,” he reported.

Marriage teaches you give and take.  It pounds your pride, because you can’t just walk away from the consequences of it.  It teaches you that you are best as part of a team, and that pulling together may not mean feeling the same way or going about it the same way – but working in harmony for good things.

This isn’t a very romantic way of expressing things.  And yet, when you both get to the top of a hill, breathing hard, hair flying in the wind – and stand strongly together, arms folded, looking back at the path you’ve come along, and then down at the country you have built and earned – and you lean together, shoulder to shoulder, knowing each other and confident in the partnership – it’s good.  It’s very good.

Thirty two years.  Gone in a blink.  Walked every step of the way.  Happy to be here.

Thank you, G.  For always being true, for being strong and kind, for loving the children with everything you are, for keeping the faith—even when you were tired, for being interested in different things than I am, but for adopting the horses as your own.

You’re my G.  And there’s nobody on earth I’d rather stand with.

Loves.  Loves, puppies, Easter eggs, books, sawdust, babies, and now wrinkles.

Amen.