Thoughts on Marriage

23 years ago today, I attended Mass in the morning, but I have zero recollection of that particular Mass on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.  I know I went 23 years ago because I was way too anxious to go in the evening: I had a wedding rehearsal to attend.  

23 years ago, the sky was sunny and still, shadows beginning to fall in a foretaste of the impending storm.  I spent some time at the nail salon that afternoon, only to smudge a finger while trying to hoist up a string of lights and losing my balance in the early evening.  I remember being frustrated, not because the nail wasn’t perfect, but because everyone around me assumed I was interested in every single detail and kept asking if I liked it - I honestly didn’t care.  I recall saying just that: “I don’t care” because the important stuff was coming the next morning. 

23 years ago, people woke up to grey, windy skies, ice sluicing across the roadways and lots. I was oblivious to all of the travel travails except for one phone call relaying my aunt couldn’t make it. I didn’t expect many to make it with the weather so nasty, but it still didn’t matter as long as two or more were gathered for the blessed event.  I walked outside without a coat of any kind in -17degree wind chill, not feeling a thing.  

23 years later, I recall with vivid clarity few moments of that grand day.  I am terrifically saddened that I didn’t pay better attention or greater devotion to the immense feast day which preceded our wedding day, nor did we consecrate our marriage to The Blessed Mother, to my great dismay.  [on that day, anyway]. Now, it would have seemed like a no-brainer but evidence of how far we’ve come in the journey to lead each other to sainthood, the second most aspect of marriage; the first being the begetting of children.  

Little did I know, 23 years ago, what would await me.  How deeply I thought I was in love on that great day was like a single drop of ice in the sky that eventually covered the grounds, measured by thick inches.  Like that ice, our love accumulated layer by layer, drop by drop.  It didn’t happen all at once, but gradually as if we looked one minute and there was a sheen of new fallen snow and looked again at the grand accumulation.  Where did that come from?

Well, I know most of it came from the graces of the Sacrament of Marriage because, frankly, we would never have made it 4 years, much less 23 left to our own devices.  If anyone thinks I’m an ok mom, well that comes from the graces through the Intercession of Our Lady, whom I now most certainly thank for her quiet presence, even when I never acknowledged or realized it.  Assuredly I should have put the two and two together by the birth of our firstborn, the eve of the Assumption of Mary; alas, I still was in the throes of ignorance.  Only in retrospect can I fall over awe at the power of Love and Grace.  

I wonder, would I have done anything different had I known? Would Mary interact any differently?  I wager not.  She is humility personified.  She is beauty.  She is never pushy and she wields more power in the quiet.  Like a good mother, she sat by my side the entire time with me never knowing what that meant.  Could she have let me know what was in store?  How do you tell a new bride what will be to come? One never knows.  

23 years and tears of joy, tears of fear, tears of sorrow; joy in our children, joy in eachother, joy in our family; sleeping on the floor of a new home, sleeping in tents, sleeping on the couch, sleeping as close as we can, sleeping in the chair with babies; suffering cold of winter, cold of cars, cold of strandedness, cold of heart, heat of summer, heat of broken air conditioning, heat of firefighting, heat of passion; new cars, old cars, car accidents, long car rides, multitudes of short jaunts; new jobs, old jobs, new houses, old houses, new furniture, borrowed furniture, used furniture; new dishes, broken dishes, old dishes, washing dishes, laughing over dishes, burned dishes; Baptisms, First Holy Communions, Confirmations, graduations, school programs, school projects, concerts we had to suffer through, concerts where we wept for the beauty; loss of weight, loss of siblings, loss of parents, loss of selfishness; abundance of friends, rejoicing in family, acquisition of bad habits; nasty arguments, unselfish reconciliation;  

There is nothing one could say to a new wife that encompasses all that transpires in what makes a life. 23 years ago, I was in love.  9,130 days later, I am indebted to the man that has shared my life more than half of my earthly existence.  I no longer know where I end and he begins - look at our children:  Where do I stop and he begin?  What half is he?  It’s impossible to even comprehend, there is no way to carve out each other, one from another.  They are flesh of our flesh.  We are one, one that began the day we made our covenant at the Altar of Christ.

He does not complete me, he compliments me.  I do not train him, I allow him to transform me; He does not make me happy, he makes me whole; so too, do I in return.  

When I said “I Do” I had no idea I was speaking into a well that sometimes has been filled to the brim with fresh waters and sometimes was almost empty with skanky drops at the bottom.    I had no idea I was speaking at the top of a valley, my infant love echoing across the trees, the flowers, the rocks, only to bounce back in time, armed with the beauty of the earth and power of wisdom and age. 

23 years of steadfast perseverance, Mary keeping us safe along the way to her Son, our Savior.