The Vows.   A look backwards.

When we stood before the preacher in front of God and the few we held dear on that October afternoon we recited the traditional vows to one another.   I was so damn happy.   I had found him!    What were the odds?  My age defied the odds, I was in my 40’s.   Our backgrounds were completely different; no one we knew would have ever connected the two of us together.  Even how we met defied the odds, driving north on a highway in a suburb of NYC, doing 80 mph on a September afternoon when the light slants golden from the west bathing everything in what the film industry calls “Golden Time” because it is fleeting and stunning.   I noticed a black beefy sports car in my rear view mirror driving like I do.   Fast and aggressive.   I slowed down to get a gander at this person, when he pulled up along side me, he in the center lane, me in the left, I literally hurt my neck going back for a second look.   He was tan, with blondish hair pulled back in a pony tail.  He was shirtless.   There’s more to the story but that is for another day.    I had found him.   My Chuck.  

It’s easy to say "to love and to honor".   Why else would we have plunked down a fortune to do this in front of everyone.   Of course we’re down for “to love and to cherish.”   “To have and to hold”…yeah yeah…  Most everyone I know has removed the obey part, we did too.  

But then comes the sticky wicket, the parts we don’t think about in depth, the vows that separate the long marriages from the short ones.  “For better and for worse”…. I’d been married before, so had Chuck.   We’d had situations we wanted out of.   I knew going in that this marriage; this was going to be “A Marriage.”  I had grown up and done the work required on myself.   I knew I wanted a forever husband.  But “for worse” can really bring a heavy price tag.    Who thinks of that?    You think of a leaky roof, not all the ramifications that the word “worse” brings with it.

“For richer, for poorer” almost slips back into fantasyland.    I’m from the middle of the middle class.   The group that goes to work everyday, pays their ever increasing taxes, tries to save for retirement, plans for vacations, gives an OK gift at weddings, attends funerals and plays the lottery occasionally.    We know “for richer, for poorer” means a life of trying,  so ….not much thought there.

“In sickness and in health”.     Now we’re getting to where the blinders go on and the cotton goes into the ears.      We’re in love.    We’re in great shape.   Sickness?   OK, a couple of bad flus, probably a cancer or two, but not the bad kind.   One that can be treated with some chemo, maybe radiation, some hairless months but then back to rainbows, unicorns and glitter.  They’re making such breakthroughs with cancer now, right?   Plus, we eat well.   Look how flush with health he is….   There’s longevity in both lines of both our trees.   I’m going to go back to looking in those hazel eyes and not think of sickness.   I’m going to dream of being in his arms for eons.

And then.   The real kicker.    The one shrouded in total fantasy.   I think there has to be a segment of the population that gives real thought to this one.   Couples over 70, couples marrying in hospital rooms or as one barely makes it down the aisle.   But people like Chuck and I?    “Till death do us part.”   We’ll be shriveled, grey, sitting in our retirement community watching a sunset when SkyLab will fall out of the heavens killing us both instantly.   I’m going to dream of being in his strong arms looking into those dreamy hazel eyes.   I am putting my head firmly up my ass.

And then it happens.   September 11, 2001.    Chuck runs down to the World Trade Center to help, he’s there before dark that first night and there for 3 days.   15 years later, on April 11^th, 2016, the day after his 56^th birthday, Chuck is diagnosed with Stage 4 Esophageal Cancer, mets to stomach, liver and pancreas.   By January 1^st, 2017 at 2:14 p.m., in hospice, the love of my life is gone.  Forever.

Last month, 6 months after he left his earthly shell it hit me like a ton of bricks.   “Till death us do part”!   In my heart and my head I am as married as I have been since October 20^th, 1996.    You're on the other side now, the vow states clearly that your end has been satisfied and I am off the hook I have always wanted to be on.

Now what?