For My Parents

So here's a newsflash...

Marriage is hard. Fricking hard. They tell you this before you get married. And you pretend to go in with eyes open. You know it won't always be easy, but you think you're up for the fight. What you don't realize, what you can't realize is that this is a war that will be fought on multiple fronts. A given week will include wrestling with an insurance company, unexpectedly trying to find a new car, managing transportation of two individuals who commute in opposite directions, wrestling with a mortgage company, random home repairs, trying to clean and prepare for a party, considering taxes, a security breach on your checking account, a sick dog, career struggles, wrestling with personal demons, walking outside each morning into soul-sucking cold, and wrestling with personality differences. You wake up each morning tired, depressed, and in need of a St. Crispin's Day speech just to get you out of bed. And all this is B.C. - Before Children.

In my Catholic high school, our senior year religion class was titled something like "Christian Life." I remember that at some point in the marriage chapter of our textbook, various stages of marriage were outline. Bascially, it was trying to explain that marriage had highs and lows and plateaus in between. The only stage I can remember is the misery stage. The reason I remember this particular label is because when I told my mom about the lesson and the misery stage, she laughed and said, "I think the misery stage lasts through all of your marriage."

I've been leaning pretty heavily on that memory this week. Forty-five years ago today, on an unusually beautiful winter afternoon, my parents became husband and wife. They were young and had no idea where that journey that started at St. Patrick's Church would take them, but I know at least seven families who are blessed by their courage to begin that journey and see it through all the twists and turns of partnership and parenthood. And they made it all look easy, like it was second nature. So knowing that my mom acknowledged the lasting effects of the misery stage gives me the slightest bit of hope that Ben and I do might be able to see our partnership through as well.

Many of you know that one of the first tests in our very young marriage was when Ben feel suddenly and dramatically ill. There were a lot of residual effects from what happened that Sunday morning, and I remember very clearly one particularly dramatic fight regarding some of those issues. In the midst of that fight, Ben I went into business to inquire about a job, and I sat in the car in the parking lot and did the only thing I could think of to do - call my parents. They both, on different levels of the house, answered the phone at the same time. Not sure what to do, I paused for a moment and then I unleashed, sobbing into the phone. It was my father who spoke first. He said, "Ann, it's going to be hard sometimes. And this is one of those times. It will be hard, but you'll ride in out, you'll be okay. Just breathe." I guess it never occured to me then that the advice was coming from personal experience. But now, three and a half years later, I realize that marriage, especially 45 years of it, can only be survived, with lots and lots of breathing through it.

So, Mom and Dad, it is with great pride and admiration that I wish you the happiest of anniversaries. Thank you for your endurance and your example. I breath a little bit easier today, knowing that two of the people whom I love most in this world have forged this path ahead of us. I can only hope that 42 years from now, on some undreamt of form of technology, there will be someone who loves us as much as we love you telling the world that we, too, endured. Your generosity, kindness, and unfailing support is something we rely on daily as an example and a source of comfort. Enjoy sunny and warm Hawaii, and know that there are two people and a dog in the frozen tundra of Iowa who love you very much.

My parents and their children, 45 years after their marriage