Landmarks

When I was very young, perhaps seven or eight, well over fifty years ago, I read in my Jack and Jill Magazine a story about a kid who was born in the nineteen hundreds and lived through the landmark of the turn of the Twentieth Century.

I wondered if I would live that long, being too old to be a baby boomer, although I didn’t think about that, and if I would live through the turn into the Twenty-First Century.

Obviously I did. And I thought about that story briefly at the millennium, but it didn’t dominate by any stretch of the imagination. That’s the only thing I remember about the millennium except the scare tactics of so many who said the world would crash around us because computers were programmed imperfectly.

And of course there was the cult (do I mean congregation? No, I think not) a few miles west of us who encouraged their members to stock up on water and food staples and clean air and guns because the world would come to an end as we know it and they would die otherwise. It seemed to me that it was kind of unChristian to believe that human survival was more important than being with their version of God after death. And their pastor reportedly drives a huge Mercedes as earthly proof of God’s grace, something else I don’t buy into. But no matter.

This week I am looking another landmark, albeit a relatively minor one. On Wednesday Ann (the love of my life, which I don’t tell her often enough) and I will have been married for forty-two years. That seems like a hell of a long time to a lot of people we know because they aren’t that old to start out with. We are ancient in their eyes. Old fogies at best. Totally irrelevant at worst.

But forty-two years seems like a very short time to me. As far as I can tell, we’re still in our twenties. Except for the arthritis in my knees no doubt caused by the fact that I weigh close to twice as much as I did when we got married. [But I carry it well. Hah.]

I am sometimes surprised we are still married, but then I look at some of our friends, and they’re still married too. We are having breakfast on our anniversary with my best man Michael and his wife Cathy, who will celebrate their forty-second in March.

Before we got married, my biggest fear was that we’d run out of things to talk about within the first month or so. It hasn’t happened. Ann and I are still talking. And I like to think we discuss things beyond the weather, organ recitals of our health, and the weather. We discuss politics, religion, art, music, movies, books, television, and current events among other topics. Sometimes we even gossip about our friends. But hardly ever.

The divorce rate for all couples hovers around 50 per cent, and has for the last too many years. Add to that the fact that about 85 per cent of people who suffer the loss of a child divorce very shortly later. That stress pushes many couples over the edge. We avoided that because we had very good grief therapy for a long time - almost seventeen years now, as a matter of fact - after Daniel’s death.

We have found joy in a lot of ways. The gift of two grandsons provides immense joy. David is leaving in a week for a semester of his junior college year in Quito, Ecuador. We’re excited and a little worried, but we’ve set up Skype. Sort of. We think. We have wonderful discussions of current events, history, and politics at dinner with David.

Jonathan will be a senior in high school and spent the last few days looking at colleges in Ohio. He wants to major in film production. And he makes wonderful films on youtube, especially for a seventeen year old. He is a funny, quirky, creative guy.

Their father sits back and watches, sometimes awestruck - as are we. The boys - young men at this point - keep the dendrites in our brains forming and the synapses snapping. We hope.

Derek and Shannon chose me their dad, another wonderful gift. They give us immense joy. Add to that Derek’s daddy-hood this week, and we are ecstatic - ecstacy caused by neither religion nor drugs. Ella is a beautiful little girl with ginger hair and a very high Apgar score - eight to nine out of ten. I never ask how much a baby weighs (6 pounds, three ounces) or how long one is (18 inches); it’s the Apgar score that is the important predictor of health. Ella also has ten beautiful fingers, which Derek is wrapped around by all reports, and ten beautiful toes, and she eats heartily he says.

We are planning our trip out to Denver to see her. And, of course, to see her parents - who will now receive short shrift from the world at large for a few years as everyone fawns over our beautiful granddaughter.

Shannon and her dogs visit us regularly. She works in a northwest suburb and keeps pretty close tabs on us - perhaps an indication that we are indeed aging. But we keep tabs on her too. She brings her two dogs Happiness and Ozzie when she visits, and we find great joy in her presence.

So another landmark. I will wake up on Wednesday and probably not feel any different having been married forty-two years than I do having been married forty-one. It’s like waking up on a birthday and not knowing the difference - especially these days as they pile up - until I step out of bed and my knee buckles.

Please feel free to comment by clicking comments below.