TWENTY YEARS

We were BABIES, sure of our maturity and ready to take on the rest of our lives together, having absolutely no idea what that meant, what it entailed.

We had no money, ate ramen with our roommates and scraped every dime from our entry level (or lower) jobs to make my pink, puffy, fluffy wedding dreams come true. Let's be honest. John would have happily been married by a bum in front of city hall and gotten bacon dogs from the street vendor. But he patiently put up with my Modern Bride Magazine-inspired visions, served up on silver trays to little girls with champagne tastes and Pabst Blue Ribbon budgets.  I got by with a LOT of help from my friends. They understood the dream. And some of them understood the strange tissue box and toilet paper roll contraption that would stuff just the right amount of potpourri (I'm gagging as I write this) into pink netting. All that crazy minutiae, so essential at the time, to create the PERFECT MEMORY to look back on.

We had finally arrived at the Weekend of Truth, all ducks precariously in a row, to the best of our abilities. All favors called in from every kind- hearted friend we knew-friends arranging flowers, decorating, opening up their homes to out of town guests. The rehearsal sprinted past, along with the dinner, prepared in a borrowed kitchen by more kind friends.

It was time for me to say goodbye to John for the night, knowing that I wouldn’t see him again until I was walking down the aisle. I remember very little else about the entire wedding. But I can picture the living room, the dim hue of the lamp, the chair that John was sitting in. He was my safety. My comfort. The reason we were doing all of this crazy stuff. And as we said our tearful, reluctant goodnight, I had perfectly ironic realization. Absolutely every detail we had worked so hard on – Two years of saving, a lifetime of dreamy planning, innumerable friends lending hands and feet, not one bit of it mattered. Right then and there, it all melted away. The only important thing about our wedding day would be that we were marrying each other.  It was with that epiphany that I realized, we had just become husband and wife. On our own, in the living room of a friend’s house, saying goodnight. The next day’s wedding would be merely a celebration of what we already knew, what we already had committed.

That indelible memory of our true union has traveled with me through our two decades together. It has reminded me at some of the more stressful, trying moments that the details we get so caught up in can change in an instant, can mean nothing. It has been, on more than one occasion, the glue that helped us survive. Don’t get me wrong. We have had more than our share of great fortune and happiness and love in this life so far. But the true meaning of “for better or worse” can only be comprehended when you are experiencing “for worse.”

For our generation, this whole long- term commitment is more the exception than the rule anymore. Who do we have to pattern ourselves after? For us, I believe what makes us push far beyond our individual comfort zones,  is our children. I want them to see the reality of relationships from all angles. To know that the fairy tale version we are offered at the movies is not reality.  To know that the term "unconditional love" that everybody so glibly tosses does us all a disservice. That love requires plenty of conditions to flourish and strengthen and survive. I want them to know that growing apart doesn’t automatically mean it’s over. To know that you might hit a breaking point  along the way that seems insurmountable. To know that fixing the broken parts can require lots and lots of work, maddening work. But it IS possible. Their dad and I are living, breathing proof of the stubbornness and determination and discomfort, and the decisions and compromises and years of learning HOW that any long- term relationship requires. That love requires.

We were mere babies, with no clue what we were doing. Now we have raised babies, grown into seasoned adults (YES, Grant, we’re OLD!!!) who work to set the best examples we can for our boys, as they reach ever closer to adulthood. We have made it together this far. My dreams of love and marriage have long since dropped their illusions of rosy, pink perfection. Twenty years of reality, of humility mean we know better. We HAVE better. We may never truly know what we’re doing, may not ever get it exactly right. But since the very beginning, we have learned that the important parts have a way of rising to the surface. In this blurry cliché of whizzing life, what else could possibly matter?? 

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

It was somewhere in the midnight hours between the last night of my father’s dwindling life and the day he died. I was sitting outside on a bench at the Towne Centre, listening to live music trailing through the doors of a building that had been an integral part of our childhood celebrations- birthdays, soccer parties, a haven for safe, teenage fun.

Hours earlier, we had determined that my dad’s body was giving us the signs. He was ready to go. We switched him from Palliative Care to Hospice, identical in care except for the remote hopefulness that the former held onto. Hospice was a word we had waited with uncertainty to hear. What would it mean? What would it be like? How long would it last? The word came with the understanding that no further sustenance would be offered to keep my dad’s body alive, only  the humane grace that medicine could provide. So, now it became a waiting game, with no clear winner.

We made a collective decision that the next day would be a celebration of all the things my dad loved. But that night, that last night of my father’s life, I had a strong compulsion to fly. I had to be young. I had to be free. To dance and stay up too late and thumb my nose at the stuffy sorrow of it all.  

The restaurant of our childhood had become a concert lounge, still a haven to the same generation of crazy 80’s teenagers, only a few decades older. The music raging from the stage was a playlist of favorites from our era. As we listened to songs that marked our youthful existence, waves of euphoric, unapologetic defiance crashed into waves of suffocating grief.

I wandered outside to escape the sensory overload and found myself in front of an old familiar fountain, my friends next to me. In the confusion of sorrow and tears, someone (I don’t even remember who, it could have been me) suggested we throw pennies into the fountain and make a wish. We dug out three pennies and I heard two splashes. My eyes were closed, fingers clutching the penny, waiting for my wish to materialize. It was at that moment, as I realized I had no idea what to wish for, that the song started. A song I had heard a million times since I was a teenager, possibly in that very spot, but had never really HEARD before.

Sweet Child of Mine.

What is the statistical probability that a song could be written decades prior, somehow played as if on cue, and then have such significant lyrics that never made sense until that moment? I couldn’t begin to tell you, but as they belted out the most existential question known to man, I knew my dad was with me. He was scared. He was genuinely asking me.

Where do we go? Where do we go now?

They sang and I sobbed. I kissed the penny, told my dad I loved him, and threw it in the fountain. Splash.

That one moment in time would have been enough. But my Jazzy MD of a dad was never one for understatement. In the months, and now years to come, I would hear the live version of this song, played from the beginning as I walked past the doorway of a bar on a busy street.  Sung by a cover band when I took my mom away for a Mother’s Day weekend and had been soaking in the significance of our time together. On the radio at precisely the same moment, in precisely the same spot of Victoria Avenue where I had heard it before. And so many other times, when I truly needed it, that I have lost count.

My dad died that Sunday, June 26^th, after a night of escaping the confines of his convalescence with his daughter, and a full day of being celebrated and surrounded by his entire family. Where do we go now? I wouldn’t profess to know the answer. Heck, I’m not even sure of where we ARE anymore! But any fears or doubts I might have had before that night have been put to rest. It doesn’t matter. And my guess is, it is closer than we think. My dad may not be here in the form that we knew him before, but he repeatedly proves to me in showy, over the top ways that he most certainly is still here.