I cannot believe that today is my 20th wedding anniversary. It is a dizzying feeling to wake up & realize – against all odds – that you & your spouse have accomplished something this momentous.
My husband Ed & I just got back from having dinner at Tuscarora Mill, an elegant restaurant in our used-to-be-podunk county (Loudoun). I’d only been there once (with a friend) & Ed had never eaten there before. We had a wonderful meal (not like some of those chain restaurants where you just know everything’s been thawed, heated & served at some exorbitant price) & a truly romantic evening. Yes! I can’t believe it! After 20 years (married to this guy, no less!) I actually enjoyed myself, like I was on a nice date.
We were talking about our wedding. We got married in Vegas (yes, you read that right, & no, we didn’t have an Elvis impersonator marry us) at the Candlelight Wedding Chapel. We hired a white Cadillac limousine to take us from the Imperial Palace (where we were staying) to the Clark County courthouse to be sworn in for our marriage license. After that, we went to the Chapel & got married by a female minister named Dorothy (we were definitely not in Kansas anymore).
Then Lee, our chauffeur, drove us to the Candlelight Wedding Chapel.
On the way, Lee regaled us with stories of other couples he had whisked to their ecstasy (or, as it turned out, doom): Bruce Willis & Demi Moore, & Whoopi Goldberg & second husband David Claessen. Bruce & Demi made it a little over 11 years; Whoopi & David, just a smidge over 2. Who would have thought that Ed & I would not only beat them, but leave them eating our nuptial dust?
Our ceremony was a trip. We entered the Chapel & went to the office. There was an old man hunched over some paperwork, sitting at a desk in a modest office. When he saw us, he asked, “Do you want to get married?” We replied in the affirmative. “Okay,” he said. “Fill out this form.” On the form there was a box to check that just said “Music.” I asked him what it meant. He looked at me (not exactly impatiently) & asked, “Do you want music?” & I said, “Ah, I guess so.” & he asked, “Live music?” & I replied, “Um, what’s the alternative?” & he said, “Recorded.”
Knowing my future husband’s dislike of spending money (that has not changed in 20 years), I asked sheepishly, “How much is the live music?” “$20.” I frowned. “How much is recorded?” “$10.”
In unison Ed & I replied enthusiastically, “Recorded!”
We followed our new friend into the Chapel itself where Dorothy, our minister, awaited us. Before the old man handed us off to her, he asked, “Do you have a witness?” We looked at each other & said no. So he said without missing a beat, “I’ll send in Al.” I think Al’s usual job was to sweep up rice (if any was thrown; we didn’t throw any). He leaned his broom against the wall of the small office & joined Ed & I at the altar, looking as though he’d done this many times before. He didn’t say a word before, during or after the ceremony. But he discharged his duty as official witness exceedingly well (& there wasn’t an extra charge on our bill, which came up to a whopping $45 for the whole shebang, including the recorded music).
I gotta tell ya, I cried like a baby while exchanging vows with Ed. This was my second marriage & I was taking this seriously. The mascara was running down my face. I think Ed was a little put off by my tears (I mean, did I mention I was really crying?). But I got through it. Don’t get me wrong; I wanted to marry Ed. But divorce was the most painful thing I’d ever been through in my life (& I’d given birth and lost my father, neither of which came close to the grief my divorce caused my heart).
Honestly, a nanosecond before I said “I do” at the altar that day in Vegas, I said a prayer. “Lord, I’m jumping off this cliff. All I can do is have faith that You’ll be there to catch me. In return, I’ll take it one day at a time, really do my best, & never stop working on myself & my marriage.”
So far, He has answered my prayer. I haven’t been 100% faithful to the one-day-at-a-time pledge, nor have I always done my very best or constantly worked on bettering myself & my relationship with Ed. But I’ve done so many things differently than I did when I was an 18-year-old & just setting off with my first husband. & I’m much better at one-day-at-a-time as I’ve gotten older.
Next post, I’ll tell you all about our wedding “reception” at Caesar’s Palace. Here’s a teaser: Sid Caesar, Danny Thomas & Uncle Miltie were there.
Spoke to my friend Nancy today. She somehow remembered my birthday. I have trouble understanding her on the phone. She’s so weak, it’s difficult for her to project her voice. She said she had her tubes removed. I think that refers to the tubes she had in her side to help with the disposal of bile & other excretions (she has little liver function, had her gall bladder removed, & has bile duct cancer). As I mentioned, I can’t quite understand what she’s saying when we speak on the phone. She had left me a message last week & I couldn’t decipher it. She lapsed into whispers & had the phone so close to her mouth that her voice was inaudible.
I asked her what was going to happen next. I want to somehow have the courage to ask her if she feels that she is going to die. I don’t know whether to ask her that or not. I know her mother (who is in her mid-70s) will not discuss her 56-year-old daughter’s imminent death. A nurse made the mistake of saying to Nancy in the spring (when she had her gall bladder out) that Nancy’s cancer was winning. This sent her into hysterics (crying, hyperventilating, refusing treatment) from which it was difficult to extricate her.
So I asked Nancy today, “What is going to happen next?” I want to open the door so that she can talk about maybe not making it through this. I know she can’t talk to her mother about dying. But it’s been a bit over one year since Nancy was diagnosed, & since then she has lost more than 50 pounds. She weighs under 100 pounds now & is skeletal. I just don’t want Nancy to be afraid. I know she’s in pain; she said she doesn’t take all the medication her hospice caretakers have prescribed for her. She “falls behind” the pain, & then it’s difficult for her to get ahead of it again.
When I asked her what would happen next, Nancy responded, “Heal, heal, heal, heal, heal.”
It’s difficult for Nancy because her parents & siblings are intellectuals. I think, when they found out Nancy had cancer in July 2007, they figured they’d research this thing into submission (or remission). They had always told Nancy what to do – in big & little ways – her whole adult life. Nothing changed when they found out she had cancer & a dim prognosis for recovery. If anything, that just made them more determined to throw all the initials after their names at this illness & bark, “Back! Back!” at the cancer cells eating away at her liver & other organs.
They’ve dictated the direction of her treatment, giving scant attention to her input. If one surgeon said she was inoperable, her mother just found another one (with more glittering credentials) that would do the surgery.
I guess I understand that. I would want to do everything in my power to save my child. But the thought that Nancy has been cut up, poked, stabbed, scanned, injected, shunted, stented, cathetered, medicated, & mishandled for over a year now just makes me literally tremble with fear & sadness on her behalf.
This whole thing has been doubly difficult for me as Nancy’s friend because I found it tough to understand her way of communicating when she was healthy. When she got sick, she spoke in ever-more cryptic language. She refused to say the word “cancer” or that she was terminal. She wouldn’t allow the doctors to put any labels on her illness. They tried to tell her it was inoperable, & she told the doctor never to say that word to her again.
Yes, I understand that, too. Nancy had read The Secret & watched the DVD. She was acutely aware of the power of positive thinking. Maybe that’s why she’s still alive today, who knows? But it’s difficult for a mere mortal like me to understand the big picture of my friend’s illness when she won’t come out & tell me what the doctors said.
I’ve had friends who died of cancer. There are marked similarities with their illnesses & Nancy’s. When Nancy first found out she had cancer, she pointedly & forcefully informed me that I was not to talk about my friends’ illnesses because all cancers are different. It didn’t matter that two of my friends who died had been heavy smokers (like Nancy) & that they’d been diagnosed with the same kind of cancer (bile duct) at about the same age as Nancy. Again, I am a lowly human being who can only use her past experiences as a frame of reference. So the past year of our friendship has been especially trying for me to navigate because I feel I can’t be the kind of good friend I could be if Nancy allowed there to be no holds barred on the discussion of her illness & its prognosis & progression.
I’m not chummy enough with her parents & siblings to get them to discuss Nancy’s illness with me honestly. Also, each family member is in a varying state of denial of the gravity of the prognosis. When I went to visit her a few weeks ago, I asked her mother & 50-year-old sister how she was doing before I went up to Nancy’s room. They both said, “Good! She’s getting better!” That was just not true. I steeled myself as I climbed the stairs to her room but still wasn’t prepared for the condition in which I found my friend.
The bottom line is that the thought of Nancy being in a trembling panic & a constant state of pain & fear just breaks my heart. She doesn’t sleep except for an hour here & there. I know how surreal everything seems to me – a healthy middle-aged woman – when I don’t get my full eight hours a night. To think that she is in this drugged state, in & out of pain & lucidity… Would it be better for her to go on to the next phase, death?
All I know for sure is, I don’t know anything at all.
I’ve noticed a theme running through all the advice columns I’ve read over the past few months (probably longer). So many women write in asking what they should do because their significant-others (SOs) won’t ask them to marry them.
Sometimes the couple lives together; sometimes they’ve been dating for years (two? seven?). But almost always, the woman is losing sleep because her boyfriend hedges when she mentions marriage. Or the latest one: the boyfriend gave the girlfriend a “promise ring” & made darn sure she didn’t mistake it for an engagement ring, because he emphatically said he was not ready to get married. Notice he didn’t say, “I’m not ready to marry you.” He just refers to marriage like it’s the blade of Madame la Guillotine, just hanging there in the mist above his exposed neck.
Is it?
Maybe that’s what marriage is, a threat to one’s life. Ironically though, I don’t think it’s a threat to the man’s life; it can toll the death knell of the woman’s though, that’s for sure.
Here’s my advice for women who are waiting for their boyfriends to ask them to marry them: STOP. If you want to be married & your boyfriend doesn’t, you must face reality. He doesn’t want to get married, or he doesn’t want to marry you.
Don’t think you can make him want to marry you because you can’t. You might think you can cajole him, or sweet talk him, into agreeing to marry you. If you do, you’ve manipulated him into doing something he doesn’t want to do. He won’t be interested in planning the wedding or the honeymoon. You’ll find yourselves arguing more over everything. Manipulating someone into doing something they don’t want to do – especially when it means such a huge commitment – is a terrible way to start your lives together.
And please: Don’t give him The Old Tomato. That’s what I call the big ultimatum, you know, when you decide you’ll tell him you have something very important to discuss with him. He’ll sit down with that “here we go again” look on his face (because he knows it will be about marriage & him pooping or getting off the pot). Then you’ll say (you have it all planned out), “We have been together for five years. I’m not getting any younger. Either we get married or we break up.”
When you give him The Old Tomato, you are threatening him, pure & simple. Is that any way to get a husband? Really. Think about it.
Here’s what will probably happen. If you’ve been living together for awhile, he probably likes things the way they are (even if he is getting pretty tired of you getting bitchy every so often & whining about you two getting married). He has a nice warm squeeze in the bed at night, someone to hang out with, someone to go to the bars & to Starbucks with, somebody to pay (at least) half of the rent & utilities with. If you’re like most women, you probably do the majority of the housework (laundry, grocery shopping, straightening the house) & you also probably pay the bills.
So this guy has nice clean socks in his underwear drawer when he reaches in. & there’s half and half for his coffee (you even make the coffee every morning). It’s nice to have someone else handle all the “administrivia.” So, he may think, what the heck. I’ll marry her. I’ll still be able to do what I want.
And you know what? He will do what he wants.
You’ll get married (going through all the agony & phony-ness of a stupid big white wedding, getting yourself about $25,000 in debt with the wedding & honeymoon, haggling over the guest list [of course you don't want to invite any of his stupid family], worrying about what he’s really doing at his bachelor party [yes, he's really doing the worst things you can imagine him doing, & so are his friends, & then he's getting into a car & driving drunk].
Then you’ll wonder why he’s never home, & he’s always drinking, & he wants to hang out with his friends, & he’s sleeping over at his “friend’s” house more & more often because he didn’t want to drive because he had been drinking, & you wouldn’t want him to get into an accident or get pulled over, would you?
And sooner or later, he’ll sleep with another woman. You might not ever know about it. But for all intents & purposes, he feels like you forced him to marry him, & that he did it for you. So he’ll feel like it’s alright if he does something for himself.
So please. Forget the flippin promise ring silliness. If you want a different life path than he does, break up with him now. This means he is not The One. Get the pain out of the way now or you’ll suffer chronic heartache throughout your marriage.
Why do you have to be married anyway?
