40 (or She Knows I Mean It)

When my parents reached their 40^th wedding anniversary, my mother wanted a party. Why she wanted one said more about endurance than celebration, but nonetheless, a party she got. I didn’t think too much about it—then. On Sunday past, I did. Forty seems like a long time, and biggies like 10, 25 and 40 are celebration-worthy (as stepping stones to the true milestone of longevity—50!) Last Sunday, I thought of that day in 1988 for good reason. It was our turn.

January 20, 1973—40 years ago Sunday—was a Friday, and I remember it well. It was better suited to almost anything other than a wedding, but late on that rainy Friday afternoon at Mt. Carmel Catholic Church in Essex, MD that’s exactly what happened. Mine. Ummm, I mean ours—Gwaz and I got married.

Days like that aren’t easily forgotten. One day earlier my good friend, Mark travelled with me from Salisbury, MD so he could attend. I remember his reaction upon meeting my future mother-in-law. Mark took one good look at Debbie’s mother and as soon as she left the room, he turned on me, thrust his palms skyward and mouthed his incredulity: THAT’S YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW?! (Yeah, no wonder where Gwaz gets those good looks; that’s for sure.)

Like I told you, Friday January 20, 1973 was raw. It had rained all day. By the time Mark and I drove to the church, it was a dark, shiny mess. The thing is, the ceremony almost didn’t happen thanks to the uniquely dangerous sense of humor of a young fellow walking next to the road. Here’s how it went: he and his buddy were trudging along the side of the road when Mark and I approached from behind. For reasons we will never know, one of the boys shoved the other into the road in front of my car. In what seemed at the time the split second before I took his life, the comedian pulled his friend to safety. The image of that joke-gone-wrong remains vivid to this day. In fact, I cannot remember my wedding day without it.

For some reason, 40 years for us seems different than 40 years for my parents. Maybe its this simple: parents are supposed to be married a long time and, for us, 40 years sneaked up on us faster than Jeff Gordon at Talladega. I used to work with a woman who claimed that if you throw a frog into boiling water, he’d jump out; but if you put him in cold water and turn the heat up, he’ll boil to death. Maybe marriage is like boiling to death. Wait, what? Nah…but it is like the frog in the cold water. The forty years came on so slow that, like Kermit, the water was already boiling before I knew what temperature it was. The years passed so unimaginably slowly that the total seems incomprehensible, at least to me.

Marriage is hard, or so I’m told. Mine isn’t. I tell Gwaz every single chance I get that I got the best woman. And, forty years down the road, she knows I mean it.