I’m a slow writer. It
takes a few days for me to get an idea to get to the page and a few more days
to edit and change and then finally, with some trepidation post. There are many reasons to think I should take
a few more days in the editing process.
Sooner or later I might get the whole quiet quite thing correct.
I started putting this little piece together on January 3,
the 39th wedding anniversary of one Marty and Marty’s Husband. We were married 39 years ago in Dalhart Texas
on a clear blue sky day. I wore a
ruffled tuxedo shirt and a tuxedo made out of what looks like velour with a
gigantic bow tie. Marty, she was
gorgeous in her wedding dress, white I’ll have you know.
It was a good day, at least what I remember of it.
We were married in the First Presbyterian Church of Dalhart
by Jack Pierce, a Baptist minister who was Marty’s one time minister. Standing beside us were Debbie Powell, Ellen
Beth Jones, Sharon Hillhouse, Skip Maines, Dean Brooks and Wright Allen. All are still with us today save Wright. We still keep in some kind of contact with most
of these amazing people. We were
surrounded and embraced by friends and family.
It was a good day.
We took pictures before the wedding which was kind of
unheard of in 1976, but it was more convenient.
I suspect there were a couple hundred people there and we all moved to
the high tone Dalhart Country Club for a short reception after the early
afternoon wedding. Marty and I drove to
Colorado Springs after the shindig in her 1976 cream colored Oldsmobile Cutlass
Supreme. We ate tuna sandwiches on a red
and white checkered cloth Marty’s Grandmother made for us for our ride. It was a nice ride.
It was a good day.
In the thirty years that followed we finished educations,
got different jobs, moved to some different towns, had some children, raised
some children and settled in our home in Waco Texas.
It was a good thirty years, mostly.
Come on, not all years can be great; sometimes it’s the not
so great years that make you stronger.
Nine years ago, on January 3, on our 30th
anniversary Marty had her second stroke.
We were home, intentionally not celebrating our anniversary because we
were tired from a trip to Dalhart and Angel Fire New Mexico. I was worried
because Marty, still recovering from the ruptured aneurysm, just seemed off a
bit.
That night, right after eating I looked at Marty and she was
slumped to her left, her face slack, saliva running down the left corner of her
drooped mouth. She had a look of real
fear and confusion on her face and I must have gone pale as I picked up the
phone and dialed 911, again.
It was a bad day.
Nine years ago, that night, on our anniversary night, I
called for children once again, I called to say, come now and they came. I watched as the ICU nurses settled Marty in
for her night in intensive care. She
actually seemed to be okay as I backed out of the ICU and drove home, without
her, again.
I was our anniversary, the 30th; it was a bad
day.
Over the next days and weeks the things got much worse and
then a little better. Marty walked the
edge of life and death too often; we went through months of rehab, years of
illness and change. We faced too many things too often too young, but we lived
through them and we have found ways to celebrate almost every day.
In the nine years since that last stroke, since those days
that shook our core we have learned, we have lived and we have loved. We have embraced each other and our families
and our friends and we have learned to live a new life one that is not perfect
but will do for now.
On this 39th anniversary Marty got her gift from
Kindler’s and we ate a quiet dinner with each other and our care giver. We sat comfortably and watched some football
and enjoyed each other’s presence, something that didn’t seem possible nine
years ago.
It was a good day.
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