38 YEARS & 51 WEEKS, WHAT I’VE LEARNED: This past Saturday, exactly one week shy of 39 years, Miss Julie & I attended a wedding in the same gorgeous cathedral where we stated our vows. As I sat with my sons & daughters-in-law behind me & accompanied by a massive pipe organ played by the same organist in October 1986, I cynically thought of marriage as two people liking each other & agreeing on a permanent sleepover until one stops breathing.
       On the way to the reception, in the same room where me & Miss Julie made our first entrance as a couple, someone asked my better half why there were pews on the sides of the church. Given my background in building & association with Episcopalians, I knew the church was laid out like a cross & the pews were in a section called transcepts, in layman’s terms, arms of the cross.
     Stepping into the reception, self indulgently pleased with my knowledge, the reality of marriage, its real meaning sank in. Like the cross, the message is sacrifice.
       I’ve learned in sacrifices of quiet dinners because one gives while one is doing what God put them here to do. Sometimes dinners are quiet because both are exhausted mentally & physically, & sometimes there is a desperate quiet when there is more month than there is money.
       It’s being in the room with each other when a father dies or taking care of the other’s mom to give a few moments of relief, or uttering words as powerful as “I love you”, the words “I’m with you”.
       It’s understanding that intimacy isn’t between the sheets but between blank stares & held hands as a child is loaded into an ambulance, fire shoots through a roof, or watching children with moist eyes repeat vows with their permanent sleepover partner.
      It’s about more quiet dinners because the stubborn pride of two people occasionally outran their passion. It’s about fine dining due to a corner office job & it’s about a Valentine’s Day meal of frozen pizza because lights & water needed to be paid for.
      When all the columns are totaled, it’s two people showing up & never giving up. Standing where I stood nearly 39 years ago, that’s what I’ve learned …