How do such things begin?

A look back 40 years after we said 'I do' and the advice that lasted

Stage Manager, “Our Town”, Act 2, by Thornton Wilder: You know how it is: you're 21 or 22, and you make some decisions; then whisssh! you're 70: you’ve been a lawyer for 50 years, and that white-haired lady at your side has eaten over 50,000 meals with you. How do such things begin?

The wise Stage Manager asks a universal question that I’ve thought about a lot recently.  

Particularly on July 22, Pete’s and my 40th wedding anniversary.

 

I have no idea how this happened, but on that date, we had spent 14,610 days together, counting leap years.  

I was 25, and Pete, 29 when we wed. 

We had met three years before at a homeless shelter. May I hasten to add: We were not clients. We were staff, newly hired and we disliked each other immediately.  

The wedding party. How do you like my $54 dress?

We got over our sour first impressions and began to date about a year and a half later.  

Pete and I decided to get married after I finished with graduate school for journalism in Washington, D.C.  I would graduate in June, we would marry in July, and after a 10 day camping trip for our honeymoon - all we could afford - we would move to Boston where we knew no one, and Pete would start grad school in psychology. 

I would get a job as a reporter, I told Pete. And I did. 

We assured each other that the move to New England would not be permanent. After two years, we would move home to Buffalo, to be near family.

Um, no.  

That never happened. For the last 2,080 weeks, we have stayed here, first in Massachusetts, then Connecticut. 

When I look at our wedding pictures today - still lovely after all these years, thanks to Pete’s talented brother Jim, who was our entirely free photographer – I want to tell that dark-haired young woman that it would all work out. 

Life is often a matter of improvisation. I knew that, even then. 

Take the wedding dress. I didn’t have a clue as to how to go about shopping for a gown, and my mother had died five years before. So I looked up bridal shops in the yellow pages, (remember those?) picked a store and drove there alone.

 It never occurred to me that any one of my older relatives would have been glad to accompany me.  

When I walked into the shop, it was buzzing with excited, laughing mothers and daughters, 

I froze. I backed out the door, crestfallen to be so alone. 

But then I spied another store nearby at the same mall in the east side of Buffalo: A store entirely devoted to selling gowns for all occasions, but mostly, as it was Spring, for proms. 

There I found an ivory dress I liked. Once I mentioned to a shopkeeper the reason I needed the dress, word spread. Sympathetic customers fluttered around me, assuring me that I looked beautiful. 

The more important thing is that I felt beautiful. And the dress cost $54.  

The wedding was simple, and I was fine with that. I figured the marriage was more important anyway.  

But a friend who then had been married for nearly 40 years had advice which I’ve never forgotten.  

Irene was my mother’s best friend, blunt and kind.  I always loved visiting her in the rural home her husband had built for their retirement in Cherry Creek, N.Y., about 60 miles from Buffalo.  She and George insisted they never fought. (They did, however, have spirited discussions.) Irene always cooked; George always cleaned up.  George was quiet; Irene was the conversationalist. 

In London, about 10 years ago, with nary a dark hair left on our heads.

So she felt compelled to give me her accumulated wisdom on matrimony. 

“Marriage is like the Dow Jones Industrial average,” Irene said. “There are bull markets, when you never think anything will go wrong. Then there are bear markets, when nothing goes right and you wonder why you got hitched in the first place. 

“If you are married long enough you can almost chart the stages. And it will seem like the tough times last the longest. But don’t give up,” she said. “Bear markets don’t last forever. You two will do all right,” she concluded. 

Four moves, seven dogs, seven cats, two kids, two grandchildren, one son-in-law, four houses, two sailboats, one farm, bear markets, bull markets and 480 months later, I guess Irene was correct. 

We did all right after all.