More Than Poetry
The back of the picture reads, to the most beautiful girl in the school, world, universe. I will love you forever. The flip side captures the face of a young man with sad eyes and only a hint of a smile. His shaggy, long hair is at odds with the suit and tie he is wearing. The memory of a young man with impossibly long legs and his best girl, temporarily smoothes my wrinkles into a smile. It was 1979, the beginning.
I am the most beautiful girl in the universe… or at least I was. The young man in the photo first talked of marriage while we sat together on the front lawn of our high school shortly before graduation. I said no. Plans to go to California to become a dancer or an actress or both would conflict with an early marriage. He had plans to join the army. Moving from base to base makes it impossible to answer a simple get to know you question with an equally simple answer. “Where are you from?” The answer is complicated if you have never lived anywhere for more than a year, “ I was born in Kansas, then moved to Georgia, then Okinawa …” I knew this because I was born in Kansas, then moved to Georgia, then Okinawa and six more moves before I was ten. I had already lived the life of an Army brat; I was not going to be the wife of a soldier. There was no doubt I loved my dad, but it was a desperate kind of clinging love. If I was good and obedient he would love me and come home. It was an odd notion with no known origin.
My mother was the constant, raising me in my father’s absences during the Vietnam War. She loved with abandon, unconditionally; her love filled a little girl’s heart with sunshine and butterflies. I guess it is the way of children and memories, and a sign of the times back then. Some things are too hard to examine and the sources of memories can be too fleeting to recapture. My parent’s life together ended in divorce. It was then that my dreams of true love began. They were filled with yearning, desiring, happiness and no fear. Love should be two people cleaving to each other in a big wide world. No clinging.
One year later, the young man had not joined the army; he gave me a ring instead. I said yes and we planned a life together. A detailed promise was extracted from him. No divorce, no reason for a divorce, never, not ever. He looked so kind and said with the gentlest voice ever, “never.” He was noble; I had already begun to fall into desperation. Determined to hold on tight to him and his promise I was unaware of falling into my old ways. How could I know? My actions were not obvious to anyone especially me. Just the opposite in fact, it was my suggestion to our pastor to include the scripture of a man leaving his family to cleave unto his wife, so beautiful, so poetic. For me it meant, come what may, we have each other.
The years passed and our family grew. He loved me through the birth of our three daughters; he loved me when I went back to school; he loved me when I traveled to faraway places without him. He loved me when I grew fat, when I grew skinny and when I grew fat again. He loved me when my hair sprung out after the requisite 80’s perm; he loved me with straight hair; he loved me when my hair was maroonish red, and when my hair turned gray. He loved me when I was happy and when I was mad. He loved me in sickness and in health.
We turned 40. Over the next few years we would become familiar with biopsies that were benign, hypertension, diabetes, depression, anxiety and panic attacks. We moved, changed jobs, and we became grandparents. I managed our lives firmly planted in the notion, do it right and love will be yours. It was working, or so it seemed. We had stared down over twenty years of life and survived still married to each other. We were not merely married, but happy with each other, enjoying life, still in love. Cooking, well, mostly eating was one of our favorite things to do together. Still wanting to share this joy I steadily replaced a certain southern grand dame of Savannah restaurant fame’s cookbooks with more healthy cookbooks with a lot of ‘no’ sprinkled on the covers. No salt, no fat, no sugar. Making sure we were compliant with doctor’s orders was the plan. Some would say I nagged, I preferred guided. Caught in the grip of loving my husband, I plowed right in, sure of the new plan. I had no idea how contradictory I had made our lives. I forgot about that long ago girl who wanted to live the poetry of love.
In February, nearly thirty years after pledging to cleave unto each other, our world changed. My husband’s mental health hit an all time low. After declaring suicidal thoughts to his doctor he disappeared on foot. Three hours became a limitless time on the clock. Phone calls were made, police came and went, and everyone we knew searched. The time bounced from fast forward frantic to slow motion distortion. He was finally located safe but in a state of utter despair. The next few months of intense therapy and some medication strategies stabilized his feelings. He has become more content, the bad days retreating into his memory. I remain painfully aware of the fragile nature of health. In a recent discussion with our doctor, I actually asked for the right recipe to ensure my husband’s safety and health. I was still clutching that magic conditional love that would keep him coming home. My doctor’s not so encouraging words were spoken after a moment of shock flashed across his otherwise stoic face. He said, “Mental illness is like any other illness, it is sometimes fatal in spite of our best efforts.” I needed comfort, not gloom and doom. Recalling the doctor’s words my lungs lurched into body betrayal mode: no air in, no air out. My feelings ran the gamut from fear, anger, sorrow, helplessness, to overwhelming love and gratitude. Months passed and as is the nature of time, some things eased. I began to remember my youthful yearning for an uncommon love found in verse.
I looked up to Cleave in the dictionary. My thought was to renew my vow, to use it somehow as encouragement. What I read surprised me. Two meanings: the first, to chop or break apart; the other is to stick fast or adhere. Not what I was expecting. So I looked up to Cling. After the expected adhere, stick or hold on my eyes moved on to these words: embrace, hang on to, retain, keep, cherish. Well, well, I get it, finally. I had it then, I have it now. The poetry of love is not in the words used to describe it but in the actions it requires to hold on. The heights and the depths of our life together have been entirely marked by embracing and letting go. There are no guarantees, no conditions. Love is in the living, we embrace it and cherish it and sometimes all we do is hang on. A woman shall leave her family and cling to her husband, not pretty prose, but a balm for my heart.
I am standing here looking at the photo of my husband taken during our senior year of high school. It’s yellowed with the passage of more than thirty years. He still thinks I am the most beautiful girl in the universe and I still think he has impossibly long legs. I will love him forever.
