50 Years

Hello and welcome to a steamy Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac by way of Czech Republic. Today is July 6th.

Today my parents-in-law celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. The last major milestone anniversary I attended was a 60th wedding anniversary of a couple from my parish. Their children exuded gratitude and love, expounding on the virtues of their parents who lived a lifetime of love for the other. When I think of that couple's collective disposition, I imagine gentle forests, rolling hills, and Bambi.

My husband's parents are more like jagged mountains, a lifetime of precipices traversed. More like sherpas with heads down, jaw set, feet in sensible, sturdy boots with heavy backpacks. More mountain goat than deer. A lifetime of love staked out with a strong faith, strong opinions, and even stronger stances sometimes against the world in which they grew up, but mostly against each other.

A Czech word comes to mind, pevně, which Google translate gives me lots of options to explain this simple word but its complex meaning: firm, affixed, secure, strong, fast, adamant, substantial. Something that is pevně is held tightly and secured; a tight fist that says, "I've got you." 

And I find myself grateful for having witnessed this kind of tussle and tension since I met them 25 years ago. What it signaled to me right out of the gate of my own marriage is that braiding a life together with someone else is work. Yes, there are moments of gentle forests, rolling hills, and an occasional idyllic Bambi. But there are also jagged mountains requiring mountain goat grit, the sinew of our love bound by faith, strong opinion, and strong stances that say, "I've got you."

This past week has been filled with plenty of preparations with bursts of bickering. During the week, we joked with them that at today's mass and vow renewal they would get a second chance to say no, to which they said, "Hey! I just might!" Then, last night, in the eye of the storm, these two people paused and came together in a tender embrace amidst their children and grandchildren.

My brother-in-law got married one month ago. With his new wife living under the same roof as his parents, I wonder if they see what I see. That navigating the tempest of life together is the love. It is the "I've got you" sort of love; the boat that carries in both rough seas and calm waters. The kind that weathers yet endures.

If my husband and I make it to a 50th wedding anniversary, I hope that my family will talk about the enduring times grinding up the mountains as much as the good times loping through meadows. I hope my children will see that the boat we built might have been ugly, and a little precarious at times, but that it held fast. Pevně.