Until October.

Conversation is in the air like music in some restaurants.  I love that.  Tonight I overheard a woman at the table behind ours. “I would say,” she began as though pondering something of great importance. “  I would say , I will love honour and cherish you, until…..October”

golden key

Having grandchildren is good for your marriage.
Not, as you might think, because you are united against a common foe, but because your patience becomes  a finely honed thing and the key, the golden key to any good marriage is patience.

matters of the heart

The smiling lad is my father. The length of his hair and the style of his boots makes me wonder if perhaps the picture was taken when he was home on leave. His army rucksack on the steps clinches it though.
He is sitting on the front steps, happily at work repairing a leather shoe.
Wedding shoes.
My parents married when he was home on leave in 1945.
It is such a joyous picture to me;
My young father, safely home and filled with hopes and dreams.
It is a joyous picture to me for another reason too.
My father is sitting on the heavy, hewn steps of my grandparents home.
It was my grandfather who felled the trees and shaped them into great steps at the entry to his home; the home my mother grew up in.
The dinner gong too was the work of his hands and it summoned more than one generation of children from wood and hillside, the forest echoing with its ringing.
And the cobble stones at my father's feet were grandpa's; practical and beautiful. Isn't it wonderful when practical things are beautiful?
My grandfather was a resourceful and creative man. A man of deep sensibilities.
He liked my father, his future son-in-law.
He welcomed him like a son.
They had matters of the heart in common.

peril and hazard

"How many years have you been married," he asked. "It'll be thirty-five in March," my husband responded, which caused me to have exclamation points above my head. How can our twenty-fifth anniversary already be a decade ago!
Andre Rieu's concert tour brought him to Vancouver that spring, ten years ago and it seemed the perfect special evening to mark our special anniversary. Off we gaily went, dressed in evening finery.
We took the sky train so that we would have no worries at all, no traffic or parking to distract us from each other.
Front row seats awaited us.
Like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears though, someone was sitting in our chairs.
It was an omen of sorts.
The seat mix-up was sorted out so pleasantly, like the calm before a storm, and we snuggled down to enjoy the show.
It was much later, as we emerged into the crisp night air, our eyes full of stars, that things began to go awry.
The sky train had been closed by the Police.
Everyone needing to travel into the valley from the city would need to be shuttled by bus.
Lines formed and the waiting began.
We had not dressed for a cool March night.
We huddled and leaned and clasped each other for warmth.
Hours ticked by.
Overstuffed buses came and went.
We were finally home as early birds stirred in their sleep.
Even then, it seemed a fitting metaphor;
An anniversary celebration that mirrored married life.
We had set out with high hopes but the unexpected loomed.
Life seemed fraught with peril and hazard.
Then turning to each other for warmth and comfort we travelled together, our thoughts on home.

loyal pair

My husband is a wood carver.
He carved a pair of loons for my parents many a year ago to honour their 50th anniversary.
A pair of loons?!
That sounds like a joke waiting to be told.
In fact, loons are amazing birds.
Such a loyal pair.
They share the work of nest building and chick raising.
So alike.
Such resilience and longevity.
They seemed a fitting choice as a tribute.

The joke came from the way their beaks were carved.
One loon is gazing into the distance, beak firmly closed.
The other has its beak parted, a call forever on the wind.
My parents joked about who was who.
I have my own opinion on that and I smile now when I look at them.
A loyal pair.

that kind of man

I made a quick trip in to town tonight. My mother suggested that she should join me to stave off cabin fever and we careened into the gathering twilight.
My thoughts travelled back in time by leaps and bounds and I found myself warbling the theme song from the Tommy Hunter Show, "I am a travelling man, following the breeze, travelling here, travelling there, gathering memories, so let me wander all my life away,......"
"No responsibility, no commitment." my mother said crisply. "We don't want that kind of man."

ring bear

I love weddings that have small children involved. They add a counterpoint to the formalities; spontaneity, the unexpected,.... comic relief.
I was delighted to learn that my daughter and son-in-law would be including two nephews and a niece in their wedding day; Two tiny ring bearers and a flower girl.
When the children came to try on their finery, one of the little boys seemed concerned.
"We don't look very much like bears," he warned. "Maybe we should wear ears."
It took his mother and I only moments to realize he thought he was going to be a ring bear. He had never heard of a ring bearer before.
On the wedding day they each carried a ring pillow; A small cream colored bear.

naturally

I had a glimpse of the Royal Wedding cakes on television today.  They were as elegant and important looking as the occasion itself and I found myself recalling a different wedding cake every bit as elegant. When my daughter and son-in-law married, his mother graciously made their cake. It was beautiful in its simplicity. Three layers smoothly swathed in creamy white fondant. White orchids had been ordered and were to be added the morning of the wedding. Brides must delegate, and my daughter asked if I would do this final decorating.
I took my task seriously. Such an important cake for such a special day. I carefully clipped each flower from its supple green stem and placed it on a tier. I weighed their placement with my most critical eye. I shifted and tweaked and primped those flowers until that cake said, "wedded bliss."
Off I hastened to other prewedding tasks.
The wedding began in a swirl of satin and a rustle of grass.
Hands were clasped, eyes were gazed into deeply, vows were breathed.
There was laughter too of course, and food and photographers, and finally, the cake.
Ours was an outdoor wedding. The night before the big day had been so windy that the grand white tent we had rented needed to be pegged down a little more securely. The day of the wedding dawned clear and warm although breezy. A breeze in August is such a welcome thing especially to those wearing suits and ties.
I can still see my daughter and son-in-law, silhouettes against the billowing white net curtains surrounding the cake table.
But, the wind had blown the orchids out of their precise placement. Some were even scattered on the tablecloth. A cake decorated by the hand of the wind. A very "natural" look.
It was later that my daughter found me. "Oh Mom," she murmured. "I love what you did with the cake."

the refuge of silence

I'm losing my voice, and it's just as well.

"Good grief, why am I whining like this? That's it, I've used up my quota of complaints for the week." I decared. "Is that all," my husband asked ruefully. "For the month then, Ok, Ok, for the rest of the year." I declared sweepingly. Now how many weeks are left til the New Year?

A cold had me by the throat, literally and my voice was the voice of a stranger. "It's a nice voice though," a coworker had kindly offered.
Silence is the universal refuge.... a balm to our every chagrin,  ~Henry David Thoreau

double trouble

Troubles shared, are troubles halved.
I don't know who did the math on that one, but sometimes, troubles shared are troubles doubled. This was the profound insight my husband and I laughingly stumbled upon while out for an evening wander.
What's yours is mine, and what's mine is yours is a truism of marriage, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. And when we signed on the dotted line, it was to spend the rest of our lives "helping." Helping with our prayers, our patience and our presence.

the joy of their love

I knew I was in trouble when I began to cry, reading the letter from the Governor General.

My parents celebrated their 65th anniversary today. Paper bells and streamers festooned the living room. Gladioli stood in stately splendor beside a black and white photo of my father in his army uniform, my mother all in lace, their arms linked, their faces bright with joy.

We had planned a simple celebration. We would begin by reading congratulations from the Queen, and work our way down through the ranks, to our local MLA. I hadn't opened the large, important looking envelopes until that afternoon. I expected to quickly read the formal greetings as a way of bestowing the appropriate respect and honor due such longevity in married life. I hadn't counted on the power of words.
Official letters, from strangers, spoke as from my heart. Admiration, respect, hope. And my heart broke in recognition of their frailty and the knowledge that such times of celebration will come to an end. Grief doesn't know its place. It arrives before its due. They still link arms, and their faces still brighten with the joy of their love. That is what we celebrate with them today. The rest can wait.

safe and sound

Traffic on Sunday evenings tends to pick up, as cars bulging with camping supplies drain back into the lower mainland.
We do our camping in Spring and Fall, pre and post mosquito. Granted, we have had to break ice in our wash basin with a fist in the morning, but the bone deep heat from the fire, is truly welcome in the chill and damp.
We return like migrating ducks to the same lake each year. Over time, bug kill has removed tree after tree, until at last, it feels like we are camping on the face of the moon.
Tenting suits our budget, but two years ago we decided to live it up, and rented a mini-van with stow away seats so that we could sleep off the ground, safe and sound. It seemed like such an inspired idea at the time.
I'm not afraid of the dark. I've always felt a certain safety as blackness descends like a curtain. The old, "if I can't see it, it can't see me" myth seems a comfort.
Our first night there, I was the last to make that lonely wander to the outhouse.
Getting ready for bed can feel like standing at the bottom of a steep hill, and I realized how tired I was.
The temperature was quickly dropping and the air becoming damp. I had no desire to sit pondering life in a drafty outhouse, and was just reaching for the latch to exit when I heard it.
A sniff.
And then another sniff.
I called my husband's name and heard a twig snap as though something had sprung away in surprise.
I called his name again.
I shouted.
Nothing.
Bears and cougars have been seen in that area.
I drew in a deep breath and screamed.
Silence.
Now, I felt truly frightened. If he couldn't hear me from his soundproof bunker, I was completely on my own. Surely he'll wonder what's taking so long and come for me, I thought, but the minutes ticked slowly by.
A chill settled over me and a great weariness. Just getting away for a few days can leave me feeling like I've been shot out of a cannon, but this was a different kind of tiredness. Everything that seemed wrong in my life, in my marriage, in my soul, threatened to overwhelm me and I began to cry softly.
Another sniff and a rustle from outside were my only company.
I heard the van door slide open and my husband called out. "Are you alright?" "No!!!" I shouted back. The van door slammed shut. "Finally," I thought bitterly, but no husband materialized outside the door to escort me to safety.
He did of course, eventually come to the rescue, but I was no grateful damsel in distress. I made several vows to myself between teeth clenched to stop the shivering, that involved camping, mini-vans, and husbands, but by morning I had started to defrost.
So much for safe and sound.
That van wasn't safe, and sound was the reason.

Trespassers Will

We celebrated our anniversary by fleeing the country. We drove off into the setting sun last Wednesday and arrived in another world. A short ferry hop, and we were at Discovery Bay. Isn't that a profound name for a holiday destination? We "discovered" a rather unfriendly, No Trespassing sign on the beach in the morning that curtailed explorations to the right so we turned to the left and averted our gaze from similar signs posted at the cliff edge. We picked our way along the shore toward a tantalizing spit in the distance. Why do things in the distance always look so inviting. Wobbling and teetering over the barnacle covered rocks, it occurred to me that my knees aren't what they used to be. Perhaps, garden clogs weren't the best choice of footwear, but clutching each other, we stumbled on. What a fitting metaphor for married life. Turquoise and lavender beach glass glinted among the crushed shells. The rocks grew smaller and smother and sandblasted fragments of driftwood lay in an undulating line at the high tide mark. At last we reached the pebbled spit with waves seeming to break on it from two sides. The bottom dropped away steeply and in my minds eye, I could see a killer whale sliding up the smooth pebbled slope and onto that spit to snatch an unsuspecting seal or........ "Try not to look like a seal, " I warned my husband, who was wearing a soft brown polar fleece jacket. Have you ever felt like you were being watched? We became aware of four, no, five seals bobbing in the surf, their large sober eyes fixed upon us. I waved but no one responded. I wish I could say the trek back was easier, buoyed as we were with full lungs of salty air, but we still hobbled over the slippery black rocks, and I may have asked plaintively, why fallen trees blocked the only easy routes and forced us to make countless detours. Metaphors came to mind again, and we boosted and tugged each other up the last rocky bit of cliff triumphant and pink cheeked. I'm thankful for the fine companion I've shared the last thirty-two years with. The wind has gusted at times, we've stumbled and grumbled, but we've kept on clutching each others arm and we've revelled at the view.