Happily Ever After

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From September 1997

Ten years ago, I brought a simple band of gold into the jeweler's shop and asked him to engrave it for me.

"I want it to say, 'Once upon a time and happily ever after' and the date '9-12-87.'"

The jeweler cocked one eyebrow and said, "It's just one ring; you can't write a novel on it."

"It's not a novel. It's just the beginning and the end. Can't you print really small?"

"No way. You'll have to come up with something else."

Before we even got to the altar, the reality was that this was a marriage and not a fairy tale. My perception at the time was that "happily ever after" meant that we'd never be unhappy. I took the jeweler's refusal a bit personally. It's a good thing I wasn't superstitious. Ten years and four children later, I've discovered what "happily ever after" really means.

My white knight, it turns out, doesn't ride a white horse. He drives a 1988 black Taurus sedan. It is the "family car" that we bought when we discovered, somewhat unexpectedly, that we were going to have a baby for our first anniversary. It is the car that he tried to convince me not to take to the hospital for that birth. He was afraid I'd get it messy. That car made midnight trips to the hospital a few more times, for a life-threatening infection as a result of chemotherapy, for another birth, and for the first of many childhood asthma attacks. It also has been the chariot to countless Sunday Masses, Saturday soccer games and midnight trips to the grocery store. Now it groans along, needing frequent transfusions of vital fluids in order to reach very local destinations. No white horse, just a trusty old black car.

My white knight, it turns out, doesn't live in a castle. He lives in a four-bedroom house in the suburbs. He works very long hours to pay for the house. There are so many riding toys, basketballs and bikes in the garage that he has never parked his chariot there. There is a swingset in the backyard that he designed and built for his children. Inside, there is happy confusions. Upstairs, there are beds in every room, but the knight often finds himself having a "sleepover" on the floor of the the family room with the young squires. No castle, just a home.

My white knight, it turns out, gets cranky when he's hungry (he reminds us of the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk). And sometimes he gets angry. This was not something I counted on when I went to have the ring engraved. I think I thought that as long as we were in love, there would be no anger, no arguments.

Around the time of our wedding, Carly Simon had a new song entitled "The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of." The tune was catchy and though I cannot even find the album (an antiquated term in these days of CDs), my children have often heard me sing the few phrases that have stayed in my mind over the years. [editor's note: isn't the 21st century grand? I found a YouTube link in 2 seconds flat:-)] I sing this tune when I wipe runny noses and clean dirty diapers, when pots boil over just as the white knight calls to say he'll be late to dinner. I sing it when I'm frustrated because I can't get the real to meet the ideal.

What if the prince on the horse in your fairytale

Is right here in disguise?

And what if the stars you've been reaching so high for

Are shining in his eyes?...

It's the stuff that dreams are made of

It's the slow and steady fire

It's the stuff that dreams are made

It's your heart and soul's desire

I never thought I'd have to reminded that my life is indeed the stuff that dreams are made of.

But I do. Reality is not as sugar-coated as the fairy tales. However the pain in our lives has borne such sweet fruit. The bitterest of arguments have yielded the greatest understanding, the tenderest reconciliation.  Real life is not a fairy tale. There is no fairy godmother; nothing is tied up in a beautiful bow.

Instead, married life is a journey undertaken by two souls. Our destination is heaven. That is our happily ever after. There is always joy, even in the darkest moments, because there is always God. Our marriage is a covenant between Mike, me, and God: a commitment. For better or worse. The joy, the genuine happiness, is in the commitment--God's commitment to us; ours to him; and ours to each other.

What I could not know as a young bride-to-be is that in a covenant marriage, the flushed, giddy, once-upon-a-time romance grows into a deep, abiding, mature love. A love that endures. A love upon which God pours out His riches graces.

On second thought, maybe I did know, deep down inside. I had my husband's ring engraved "Once upon a time and forever" and slipped it on his finger on a beautiful morning ten years ago "as a token of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

The other day, I happened upon an overstuffed envelope filled with old columns. Most of them pre-date my time on the internet. I enjoyed some quiet time, re-acquainting myself with the young wife and mother who wrote those columns. And since I'm in need of a bit of a blogging break, I'm going to share her with you in the next few weeks. I hope you are blessed.

I am happy this week to share this post with my dear friend Ann Voskamp, as part of her June devotion to the Spiritual Practice of Matrimony

holy experience

Missing

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I live in the shadow of an international airport. I see its tower every day. When I drive to soccer, it's on my left; to ballet, it's on the right. When I drive to the grocery store or daily Mass, it's right in front of me. Taunting. Reminding.

How many days until he leaves? How many days until he comes home? How many hours until I make the 17  minute drive, pulling to a stop at the very end of the upper deck, my heart leaping as  I get that first glimpse of him?

This airport is woven into our life. We chose our neighborhood because of its proximity to the airport. We went into this lifestyle with our eyes wide open. I don't have a substantial paying job in this two-income economy. But we do have two incomes. For as long as my children can remember, my husband has worked two jobs.

One job takes him an hour from our home into the heart of Washington, DC every day. He commutes without complaint in a town known for complaining commuters. The other job takes him out of town nearly every weekend to produce live sporting events all over the country. Sometimes, there is a perfect storm and the weekday job requires travel, too. All those sportscasters don't just magically appear on location on South Beach for the Super Bowl. Someone goes there well in advance to make television magic happen. I know him well. He left today. I hear it's going to snow. And snow...

And, so, the missing begins. I remind myself that he is not deployed. He's producing television shows about a football game in Miami.He will work long days, but he will be safe. Two weeks hence, he will come home.

This is our life. There is a constant cycle of coming and going. I don't often write about it because it's probably unwise to publicize it too often in public spaces. [Note to the bad guys: Dad might be gone, but there are three man-boys in this family. They are all six feet tall. Two of them are more man than boy and the third is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. And we have a very big dog.] Despite the lack of print it receives here, travel is big part of our family culture. And it very much plays into this. "I can't do that" because my husband works very long hours and travels frequently. Conversely, I don't have to do that because my husband works two jobs in order to give me the freedom to focus intensely on hearth and home and family. It is a lifestyle that is not without considerable sacrifice on both our parts, but it is the lifestyle that works for our family right now.

So, we each endeavor to make the best of what we do. We work hard at those survival strategies. Still, sometimes, at the end of the day--quite literally--all there is is the missing. I sleep on his side of his bed when he's gone. At least for the first couple of nights, the pillows still smell like him. I'm sitting there now, wrapped in a ginormous bathrobe with DAD monogrammed on it.

For the next two weeks, I will endeavor to make life run as smoothly as possible, though there will surely be too much on my plate. I will make sure that every child gets picked up and dropped off and, as much as possible, every game will be watched. I will try hard to stay up later than my teenagers and make sure no one is online, on the phone, or watching television because I fell asleep nursing. I will  put dinner on the table every night, despite the temptation to serve cereal in paper bowls. Lessons will be learned, books will be read, tutors will be paid. Children will be tucked into bed and kissed goodnight after prayers are said. 

With God as my helper, I will do it with grace and good cheer. I will do it with gratitude. Because to do so honors the man who works so hard to bring to life his vision for home. But with every breath and every moment, I will miss him. I will miss flirty text messages throughout the day that hint at evening's homecoming. I will miss squeals of glee from tiny girls when they hear his footsteps in the foyer. I will miss the careful dance we do to meet the daily needs of our children together. I will miss meeting his eyes with twinkling appreciation above the melee of our family life. I will miss tracing my finger along his cheek at night before I fall asleep with his strong arms around me. And I will miss slipping out of bed in the morning , knowing that he will gather our baby girl in those arms and sing her back to sleep.

I will be grateful for my extraordinarily generous husband. I will be grateful for these children, this home, this life. And if I find myself in the chaos of my life wishing instead that I were in a hotel on Biscayne Bay, it's only because he is there.

And Now She's Got Me Crying Again

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Oh, Amy, do you know how we weep with you? You write your way through your grief, sharing just a portion of your loss, your sadness, your journey in hope. And every time you bare just that bit of your soul, we send a quick note to our husbands, we make a doctor's appointment for a physical, we hold them just a little closer, a little longer. Because really, we don't begin to understand your grief. What we understand is your love for Michael. Thank you for  reminding us of love and for reminding us to love.

Thank you for making it so...

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I had about a dozen intros in my head for a Mother's Day post. As life would have it, Mike was gone all last week. It has rained every day since this month. One would think that that would effectively cancel all sports commitments. It did not. Instead, the carefully constructed schedule became utterly soggy and I flew by the seat of my pants, getting children to turf fields so they could practice in driving rains. It left little time for writing and much time for thinking.

I'm still firmly entrenched in glad to be alive mode, counting blessings and singing praises of the Lord who bestowed them. Last night, Paddy played a State Cup game back in the town where Mike and I met and where we first set up house as a family. I called him from the bleachers and told him that I was standing in the same place where I stood all those years ago when he asked me to go to the homecoming dance with him our senior year. I was watching our oldest son, the coach, warm up our third son, the soccer star. Around me were six other small people, who all bear an uncanny resemblance to him. And I looked at Mike's dad--always with me it seems, when Mike can't be--and we agreed that it was a golden homecoming indeed.

There was a dark cloud over the game most of the time. At one point, it rained really hard. Nicholas started to freak out as he does when it rains, but I pointed out that all around the perimeter of the cloud the sun was shining. After the shower, we were treated to a rosy glow of sunset. I remembered the little girl I was in this town, marveled at the mother I had become, and wondered about the children who daily astound me. We've had our cloudy days, even some fierce storms, but that rosy sunlight has always been there, if I just stop long enough to appreciate it.

The game turned into a nailbiter and Paddy's team won in overtime. He and Michael were euphoric. We all were really. The excitement in that stadium far exceeded any I'd ever witnessed at any game in  that town. Giddiness defined the early evening as it crept into the night. But the man who truly loves the game, the man who made this all possible for me and for these children, was 3,000 miles away in a TV truck, limited in his appreciation of the moment by my lame play-by-play into a cell phone while walking a baby.

Patrick went back to school with Michael last night. I took the children in my van to see our first house. We paused for a moment in the darkness and my mind swirled with a million memories of tow-headed boys and learning to be a family.  I felt tears spring to my eyes when I remembered the dreams of the new bride there. Sarah was crying in earnest and Katie needed to go potty. Karoline was beyond tired and Nicholas was carsick. We drove west towards home into the dark and my thoughts were all of Mike. I was ready to roll these children into bed and sleep an exhausted sleep. He was just beginning his night's work. Then, he'd board plane and fly home through the sleeping hours.

He arrived this morning just before 8AM. It's Mother's Day. I'm so grateful to the man who makes it so.