Valentines

On Christmas Day, 1929, my grandparents were married. Shortly before Thanksgiving 1987, my grandmother died. For the next 18-1/2 years, my grandfather kissed her picture before bed every night, and periodically shared his thoughts with her throughout each day, as he'd done for all the 58 years of their marriage.

In some ways, theirs was a very modern marriage. In others, it was completely timeless, and seems far removed from the stresses and tensions of modern life. (That is illusion, I'm sure. It's not like the 1930's were stress-free.)

Before our wedding, Paul and I wrote a statement about what marriage meant to us, which my mother read aloud during the ceremony. I remember the writing process so clearly: my early drafts sounding so academic, precise, and dry, all very big picture, while Paul's thoughts were all anecdotal. The final result was, of course, an amalgamation, as we are as a couple.

In all our youthful exuberance, these are snippets of what we felt about marriage on the eve of our own wedding: "Marriage is a partnership between two people who, as a couple, are greater than they would be individually," and, "A married couple shows affectionate caring for the times when one simply needs the other to listen and say that everything will work out alright in the end."

With examples like all four sets of our grandparents, how could we have expected any less of ourselves?

Happy Valentine's Day!