Poem For Our Fifty-Eighth Wedding Anniversary

PoemAnniv2014

June 17, 2014

Here we are
My Love
At the very edge
Of our fifty-eight years
Of married life
Ready to step through
The wide open door   
Into our fifty-ninth
Such a wondrous journey
It is
Each era of our lives
A canvas
Filled with all colors
On the spectrum
A color wheel of hues
Brilliant   vibrant   penetrating
Every minute   every hour
Every breath   every heartbeat
Seldom dimmed
 
Oh the gratitude
We feel
The blessings Spirit
Gives to us
Like grains of pure
White sugar sand
Too numerous to count
But name them we do
Our prayers of thankfulness
Hold them close
 
And you   my Love
Allow me to find
My truth
Of who I am
Accepting me
As I am
As I do you
 
Our love grew
While we grew
Truly children
When we began
Now
We are like the Rose Garden
In full bloom
We pass on our way
To dinner
In the Monterey dining
Room
Every flower
Beautiful   perfect
Unique on its own
Together   together
They are the garden
The Rose Garden
In all its splendor
PoemAnniv2014#2

“Have enough courage to trust love one more time.” –Maya Angelou

MomBlogAliceArnold50s 1

This photograph is of my beautiful mother, Alice, and my wonderful stepfather, Arnold, just after they were married. The image depicted took place at a club in downtown Chicago. Arnold’s large Stine family, and Alice’s small Wolbach family gathered in this rather fancy city club called the Standard Club to celebrate their marriage. Of course, Stephen, my adored husband, and I were there. None of our children, however, attended; they were too young to be dragged out of Waukegan where we lived, and into Chicago. (Waukegan’s claim to fame: the childhood home of Jack Benny, who had been a friend of Stephen’s family.)

It would have been late in the evening, and it was a forty mile drive, so none of Mama and Arnold’s grandchildren saw their wedding vows and participated in the festivities afterwards. I don’t remember too much, except that I wore a short blue dress. The Standard Club had a tradition when there was a special event to have the waiters march in with the dessert, which for the wedding reception was a flaming baked Alaska. This procedure, which I had witnessed on more than one occasion, always sent me into a paroxysm of giggling, which grew very difficult to suppress as the waiters advanced around the tables.

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This unfortunately was not the only time or place giggling overtook my composure. One evening in Orchestra Hall, again in downtown Chicago, Stephen and I were with my grandmother and my Aunt Bea in a smaller room, other than the large auditorium. It was a string quartet and one of the selections was a very modern piece–atonal, I called it. Well, the window overlooking Michigan Avenue was open; it must have been a summer night. There was a long note played by the violin held for quite a while, and at the same time–the exact same moment–a taxi horn sounded on the same note the violin was holding. That did it for Stephen and me–we hadn’t liked the music at all, and this taxi horn sounding the same note as the violin was too much to bear. We both went into a paroxysm of repressed giggling, which meant our shoulders began to shake with the effort of holding in our laughter. Aunt Bea gave us several looks of intense disapproval, which only made us shake more violently.

It was embarrassing, I will admit, but there is nothing that can stop a paroxysm of suppressed giggling–it has to subside on its own. Eventually, it did.

Thanks for the memories! This is such fun!