here come the brides

 

I’ve been thinking about marriage. Not because I plan to walk the aisle of doom any time soon, but because I am watching a marriage trifecta unfold in the lives around me.

One soon to be wed couple, one soon to divorce couple, and one married almost sixty eight years couple. The beginning, the middle, the end.

 

I’ve been married before. It didn’t take too well. I was all in but unfortunately my husband was all in too, just in someone else’s arms. I had a problem with that. 

But that was over twenty years ago and I like to think I’ve healed up nicely.

 

And I have. I’m still a big fan of marriage. I tear up as the bride and groom say “I do” and I am always sad to hear of a marriage on it’s last legs. I don’t think marriage is a necessity or a automatic ‘get out of hell free’ card. I think it’s an honor and a privilege to love someone so much that you want to pledge all you are to them for your forevers.

People say marriage is only a piece of paper and not important but I think it is. 

We have so little in life that’s really truly our’s. Our name, our word, our lives and to give someone your’s as a sign of your love is special. To pledge to wake up each day together and face what happens side by side and to end each day face to face is the best bond of all. It isn’t the ceremony that matters. Although some people need to have those ribbons and bells and $2,000 wedding cakes, others opt for a few words in Vegas before their favorite Elvis impersonator or a quiet beach at sunset surrounded by their family and friends. It isn’t what you wear or how many groom’s men and bride’s maids you have.

It’s making that vow to face life hand in hand and see each other through it all. That’s what’s important.

Next month I’ll watch two people, I once held as babies, commit to each other and I’ll cry. I’ll also lend my shoulder and my ears to two dear friends whose roads are now going to be separate after twenty years together and yes, I’ll cry then too. And then I’ll celebrate with an Aunt and Uncle as they savor the past sixty eight years of life they’ve shared. Big surprise.. I’ll cry.  

I’ll look through photo albums and see each step they took. I’ll meet their newest great grandchildren and even one great great grandchild. And I’ll think about the vows they took when they told each other they’d be there no matter what. It’s more than a piece of paper and a ceremony. It’s a giving of all you are and meaning it. It’s trying your hardest to make it work and being able to pull it off. It’s a beautiful thing when it works and I’d like to think most couples go into it with plans for forever. Not all make it and that’s sad but some make it all the way and that gives hope to those starting out.  It doesn’t matter how you make the promise, it only matters that you make it with the best of intentions. Maybe some don’t make it but many do and I think that’s pretty amazing. I hope the wedding I attend is one of the ones that lasts forever.

won’t you be my neighbor?

SANDY RUN, S.C. – Mary Sue Merchant died of  natural causes in her tightly locked house on 25 acres in this small community, with only a dog for company. Now her small town is reflecting on why no one noticed for 18 months

_________

 This isn’t the first time I’ve recently read stories like this. People not noticing neighbors.  People living side by side so caught up in their own lives that they don’t notice those who live around them. We pull up our driveway into our garages and the door comes down shutting out the world around us. We can find other countries, other worlds on our computers and television sets but we don’t know the first names of the people next door.

I know some say that’s a good thing because of the perverts and sickos among us but when we shut out our neighbors we shut out so much more.

I grew up in a house on a street in a neighborhood of people I knew. My parents let us outside alone in packs safe in the knowledge that the people who lived around us knew us too. Our street was like family each house another branch on the family tree. Mrs Rietano next door babysat us. My first babysitting job was for the family on the other side. My oldest son named for their little boy, a man now with boys of his own. We celebrated birthdays, had street picnics, mourned losses, and we children played outside year round. WE waved at each other when passing in cars and when someone was ill we pulled together to help out. One memorable winter the men n the street dug us out house by house after a particularly bad snow storm.

There were bad things about living on a close-knit street like I did. I could get in trouble at one end of the street and my folks would know about it by the time we’d all pedaled back home. Each house had a story. One family retired missionaries, another the large family of the local Police Chief, a childless (by choice) couple, an immigrant from Italy and her adult unmarried daughter. We had 6 Kodak families, two from Case-Hoyt, a widow with 8 children who always was first to help out anyone who needed anything. one always unemployed man who took his anger out on his wife and kids time after time even after one by one the other parents would call the police for help. We looked after the weak ones, cheered on the athletes, and helped each other put up and take down Christmas and Hanukkah decorations. Kids got to play outside after dark, parents felt safe knowing who was around us.

It sounds like a silly old fashioned life to live but there’s a security and happiness in knowing your neighbors. I know mine now, it’s second nature for me. I wave and say hello and send over baked goods to the nice elderly widower on the corner. I don’t want to be the person who one day is quoted in the paper saying “I hadn’t seen her in a while but I was so busy I just never noticed” My life is busy and yes, I pull up the driveway and into the garage and close the door shutting out the world around me but I always make sure to know the people around me because life is full of strangers already, I don’t want to live surrounded by strangers too.