Happy Anniversary to The Beloved Spouse™

 Today we celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of The Beloved Spousal Equivalent’s promotion to Beloved Spouse.

Notice how I did not say anything about it being ‘fifteen years ago today?”

That’s because it wasn’t. The actual anniversary was this past Wednesday, November 27.

Why the discrepancy?

In those days my parental units used to visit us over the Thanksgiving holiday. They’d arrive Wednesday afternoon and leave early Sunday morning so Dad could be home for the Steelers game. (He was old old school and didn’t believe in watching recorded games, no matter how much of his remaining time on earth would be saved by skipping commercials.)

The Sole Heir was still local then, a freshman at the University of Maryland in College park. She was home in Olney for the holiday weekend.

TBS and I had decided to get married but wanted something in our own…idiom. We arranged for a celebrant to come to the house on Black Friday afternoon, as Mom and Dad would be there and we could easily arrange a pretext to get TSH to the house.

Oh, yeah. We didn’t tell anyone except for the celebrant we were doing this. No one.

We were watching hockey – the Penguins would go on to lose to the Islanders 3 – 2 – with TSH and her then boyfriend now husband wondering what it was we’d hurried them over there for.

Three o’clock. The doorbell rings.

 Our celebrant, Heather, is at the door dressed in medieval garb. “Would anyone here like to get married?”

I turn to TBS. “Don’t we have that box of wedding stuff somewhere?” She says yes, tells me where it is – I already knew, this was theater – and everyone else wondered what exactly the hell was going on.

The wedding box contained, among miscellaneous festive appurtenances:

·       Tee shirts labeled husband, wife, mother, father, daughter. (We didn’t know Zack was coming, though he was more than welcome.)

·       Two small notebooks containing our “scripts;” the celebrant had her own scroll, for reasons that will become apparent later..

·       Heads on sticks of my brother, sister-in-law, two nieces, their dog, and two close friends who lived nearby and we knew would have come had we even hinted at this.

We then went through a real and legally binding ceremony while everyone else looked on with various shades of amusement, disbelief, or irritation. (It took Mom a while to figure out what was going on. She was still pretty sharp in those days, but no longer all that imaginative.)

I’ll not go through the entire brief, but not very solemn, ceremony here. Suffice to say it began thus, in script form:

HEATHER

 

Dearly beloved,

 

I know this was unexpected, so I will be brief.

 

(Allow scroll to fall open. It’s about four feet long.)

 

We are gathered here today on this not quite so solemn as some might have it occasion because when one heart exhibits migratory behavior toward another, it’s a force of nature, and not a question of where it grips it. Corky and Dana have married before. The marriages fell over and sank into the swamp. They tried again. Those marriages burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp. So here they are, having learned from experience and lived as married in all but name (nudge, nudge, say no more) to build the strongest marriage in all the kingdom.

 

[References to Monty Python deliberate and numerous.]

Five minutes later we were married.

“This is all very nice,” you are asking, “but what does any of it have to do with not observing the actual date of the wedding?”

Good question. Actually, a great question. (What’s the difference between a good question and a great question? A great question is one I know the answer to.)

We were both still gainfully employed. We knew we’d always be off during the four-day weekend. November 27 might not always be convenient for an anniversary celebration.

The day after Thanksgiving would.

So here we are, celebrating our anniversary on the agreed-upon day, two days late by the calendar. Our prescience has been proven solid, as today finds us in Florida, where The Sole Heir, her husband, the baby, TSH’s mother, and Zack’s parents have all convened for the holiday. There are no better ways to celebrate important life events than with as many of the people who mean the most to you as can be assembled. That is exactly what we are doing.

Of course, the anniversary would still be a joy had it been just the two of us. The Pens play at Boston this evening – it’s later in the day than fifteen years ago, but the in-laws live in Massachusetts, so a friendly rivalry may be in order – even if we had nothing else scheduled. (Assuming the game is on in Florida.)

Every day is a bit of an anniversary with The Beloved Spouse™. We both do little things, intentional and otherwise, that remind us of why we chose to formalize a bond we’d already shared for five years. We are growing old together, not for better or for worse, but for better, as we are both well-equipped and willing to help the other through whatever vicissitudes old age visits upon us.

I wish I was as smart every day as the day I said:

DANA

 

I, Dana, take you, Corky, as my lawfully wedded wife, in this ceremony crafted to our own particular—uh—uh—

 

CORKY

 

Idiom

 

DANA

 

Idiom, to share in my great tracts of land in a very real, and legally binding sense. I promise never to make you live in a self-perpetuating autocracy, but in a an anarco-syndicalist commune. We shall take it in turns to be a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting. Soft dirt shall not tempt me, even when I find unidentified and previously unannounced vegetables in my dinner, and I shall not say “Ni!” to you unless strenuously provoked.

 

Happy anniversary to The Beloved Spouse™. Never was a title more richly deserved.