Marriage Season
June, the traditional month for brides, is fast approaching, and this pastor has been hard at work praying I won’t have to put on my suit and officiate at any June weddings this year so I can spend those four Saturdays riding my motorcycle instead. My wife and I were married in June 32 years ago, and when I think of what we put our poor minister through, I want to dig him up and apologize. We were married 100 miles from his house, which meant he had to drive down the day before, conduct the Friday night rehearsal, and then sleep in the only hotel in town — a buggy hovel that rented rooms by the hour — because it was too far to return home. I’ve had to do the same thing more times than I can count, and I usually ended up wishing the couple had just eloped and saved everyone the trouble.
I’m not sure how June became the month for weddings. It’s a tradition we seem unwilling to shake, even though February is a much better month for weddings because we’re all tired of being stuck inside and could do with a good party. Then the couple could honeymoon in the Caribbean, and it would be a nice escape from winter. What good is the Caribbean in June, when it’s just as warm and sunny back home? Plus, there’s a symbolism to winter weddings, the inference that it’s just the bride and groom standing together against a cold and gloomy world. All June promises is endless stretches of sunshine and roses, which is why so many people married in June get divorced when they hit their first patch of trouble. A wedding should prepare us not only for the best life has to offer, but also the worst. Sickness and health, richer and poorer, for better or worse. In June, it’s nearly impossible to convince anyone there might be sickness or poverty awaiting them. In February, sickness and poverty are all we expect, so health, wealth, and happiness are a nice surprise.
Every year, I ask my wife what she would like for our anniversary, and she always says the same thing: “There is nothing I want nor need.” This is the problem with being married to a Quaker. Just once, I wish she’d pretend to be an Episcopalian and say jewelry or flowers or candy. I would especially like it if she said candy.
It’s interesting, and I hadn’t considered this until now, but in all the years we’ve been married, my wife has never asked me what I wanted for our anniversary. The cultural expectation seems to be that wives should get anniversary gifts, but not husbands. There are a whole bunch of things I want, and would happily provide my wife with a list were she to ask. Which might be why she doesn’t.
I have three motorcycles, each of them long in the tooth. One is 17 years old, another is 32, and the third one is 42. That’s close to 100 in human years. I’m long overdue for a new bike, so that would be the first thing I would suggest. I already know she wouldn’t get me that, so I would have to go to the second gift on my list — a new truck, which she also wouldn’t get me. Which brings us to my third gift request — a new pocketknife, which is what she always buys me for my birthdays. I own 34 Case pocketknives, most of them gifts from my wife. I like pocketknives, but I can only use one at a time, so my other 33 knives sit in my sock drawer, tarnishing.
This year, I hope we make it to the fourth item on my list — Saturdays off. This means my wife will have to officiate my weddings for me, which will give me more time to ride the new motorcycle I’m going to buy for myself just as soon as my wife isn’t paying attention.
I Loved My Wife, but I Wished She Would Die
L
ast November, I wasn’t too surprised to hear the topic of an afternoon radio call-in program was Brittany Maynard, a terminally ill California woman who moved to Oregon to take advantage of the state’s death with dignity law and end her own life.
The fact that an attractive young woman made this decision caught the media’s attention and reignited debate on the issue of physician-assisted suicide. Her story also caught my interest, having gone through the slow and painful cancer death of my own wife.
The first caller said that Brittany’s husband should have talked her out of her decision. He was sure that her husband would regret losing her before the last possible moment. The caller said that he would give anything to have one more hour with his wife. I’m sure that is a common attitude, especially if the loved one has died suddenly, but it is not my experience. I would give anything to not have experienced the last week of my wife’s life.
As I see it, Brittany gave her husband a gift. He will not have memories of his beloved gradually losing her mind and control over her bodily functions. He will not have memories of watching the person he loves most moaning in pain. He will not have memories like the ones I have — of vomit and bedsores and things so horrible that I cannot bring myself to type them into this keyboard. He will not have memories of reaching the point where he started wishing that his wife, his partner of 38 years whom he loved with all his heart, would die. Those memories don’t go away; they come back in dreams and nightmares.
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The New No-Car Garage
The house I grew up in was built in 1913, in that murky era between horses and cars, when a homebuilder had to decide which way the transportation winds were blowing. The man who built the house evidently believed cars were a fad, so he constructed a barn behind the house. My father was always trying to park his too-big car in a too-small stall, like someone struggling into a too-tight pair of pants. Half the back end hung out. While the barn was a bust, storage-wise it was ideal, handily absorbing the flotsam and jetsam of my parents’ lives. Growing up, I spent many a rainy Saturday in that old barn mining for gold.
When my wife and I bought our first home, I began to fill the garage with all manner of useful items over my wife’s objections. We have five bicycles. Their tires are flat, their frames coated with dust, their chains rusted to the sprockets. But it’s nothing a bicycle pump and a squirt of WD-40 can’t fix. I have four bicycle pumps and three cans of WD-40. Supplies aren’t the problem; expectations are. If I fix the bikes, my wife will expect me to repair everything else and sell it all on Craigslist, which I have no intention of doing. There’s no sense raising her hopes only to see them dashed.
I have four lawn chairs I intend to fix just as soon as I find the time to get the webbing to repair them. I bought them 20 years ago at a garage sale. The lady selling them apparently didn’t understand their value. The seats need to be replaced, but it’s nearly impossible to find a good old-fashioned lawn chair anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve tripled in value. With CD interest rates running around 2 percent, I can’t afford not to keep them.
As a general rule, my wife avoids the garage. But every now and then she wanders in, poking around. She invariably sees something she thinks I don’t need and quizzes me about it. Like the time she came upon my watering can.
“Why do we need that?” she asked. “There’s a hole in it.”
“It’s nothing that a little duct tape can’t fix,” I said. I have six rolls, and possibly more, in an old refrigerator.
Her efforts to reform me reach a fever pitch each spring, a season customarily associated with putting things in order. Spring is my least favorite time of year.
In April my wife hints at her intentions. “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were room in the garage to park our cars,” she says. I let her remark pass. It’s only the warm-up.
In early May, always on a Saturday morning, she reminds me the town dump is having a free community day, and that we can throw away anything we want for free.
As if she has to remind me! It’s my favorite day of the year. I drive to the dump and bring back a truckload of perfectly fine stuff other people have discarded. That’s how I got my three-wheeled lawn mower with the blown engine. I’m going to fix it one of these days.
Not long ago, my wife and I were watching television at my parent’s house and a show about hoarders came on. Their houses are stacked from floor to ceiling. A psychiatrist was saying it’s a mental illness, an excuse we trot out when we don’t want to face the truth. Let’s put the blame where it belongs, on architects who 70 years ago stopped designing houses with adequate storage. My parent’s house had a full basement, a full attic, a two-story barn, and three extra rooms with no specific purpose, to be used at the homeowner’s discretion. As a consequence, my parents got along just fine. If the architect who designed our house 22 years ago knew what he was doing, my wife and I wouldn’t have to argue every spring.