On Thursday evening, with storm clouds threatening, Killer’s son got married. The bride was beautiful and the groom looked both in love and appropriately terrified.
Watching them become a legal couple was personally gratifying in that I had been Killer’s best man when he married a girl who clearly would have rather had Satan in her wedding line than me.
Back to love and terror. In my mind, that’s the perfect start to a marriage because it’s at least a hint that you’re paying attention. I say this because even great marriages have their problems. Anything involving human beings does.
Watching the happy couple 43 minutes after they said the magic words, I wondered how their marriage would turn out? Will love endure the test of time?
In exactly a month, I will have been married 43 years. On that gorgeous autumn day, my wife was beautiful, and I was in love. And, yeah, I was terrified.
My fear stemmed from not wanting to mess up a marriage to someone so wonderful. I was 22 when I got married, but already had a long history of turning great opportunities into financial disaster, confinement and even physical injury.
Predictions to the contrary, my wife and I managed to hold it together. It certainly isn’t because our marriage was problem-free. I think it’s because, no matter what happened, we still loved each other.
We’ve been through things far more serious than those that tore apart the marriages of people we knew. Killer’s marriage ended when his wife dumped him for her college sweetheart.
The given reason was that Killer had stopped being religious enough to suit her. As terrible as the moment was for Killer, I laughed out loud when I heard it.
First, because divorcing the person you swore before God to love and cherish no matter what simply because he isn’t going to church enough to suit you is the epitome of irony.
Second, because I’ve never been religious enough for my wife, even after she changed religions, but we’re still married. I’m thinking — and, for that very reason, I could be wrong — that it’s because we put each other first.
I can’t stand it when my wife is unhappy, even when I think she deserves to be. It’s entirely possible she feels the same way about me. All I know for sure is that she’s still the woman who took my breath away.
When I asked Killer what advice he had given his son about marriage, he rolled his eyes and said, “Like I know anything about that. You’re the one still married. You tell him.”
I thought about it and decided against it. I didn’t tell Killer NOT to marry his first wife even though I (and the rest of his friends) thought she was totally wrong for him. He wouldn’t have listened to us. He might have even gotten mad.
Besides, I didn’t listen to any of the advice I was given when I got married. Hell, I don’t remember a word of it.
Staying married came down to my wife and I believing that we — together — were worth fighting for. It’s something on which both parties have to agree.
And, in the end, only time will tell.