This column is dedicated to my lovely wife Jan, as tomorrow is our 25th Anniversary!

 

When we look at beautiful houses, or breathtaking historical structures like the Pyramids or the Mt. Rushmore, we are in awe of the craftsmanship, the beauty. Sometimes it seems that they simply fell from the sky, magnificent as they are, and suddenly occupied the spaces before us. It is inconceivable that the field, the mountain, the lot was once empty, once the domain of small creatures and weeds. It is unimaginable that the thing that rises before our eyes was once stone sleeping in the arms of the mountain, wrenched free by untold thousands; or that the lovely shapes of a beautiful home are made by wood that grew in the forest and was assembled in noise, and dust and sweat by builders.

Just so, when I look at older couples, I am in awe. I meet them all the time. ‘We’ve been married 55 years doctor! It has been a great life so far!’ They touch their hands together, smile and dote. The movements of their eyes, the laughter, the instant grasp of communication, it all seems so natural. As if, from the moment they met, the connection was made. The carousel switched on and springing to life in the darkness, full of music and color.

We forget that there were times when those charming people struggled. When he thought she was crazy, and she thought he was lazy and all of their parents wrung their hands in worry and folded them in prayer for the young couple. There were times when they had no money and others when they had no time. And there was sickness and struggle and exhaustion as surely as there was health and joy and adventure. A marriage is an edifice that rises up with great, and endless, effort. The construction of one entity from two is no small thing, and while the words are said as covenant, the building process may last a lifetime, even if it looks perfect to the casual passerby.

This week is our anniversary, Jan’s and mine together. On May 26, 1990, we were young and in love, we were nervous and excited and we walked down the church aisle. She was one year out of graduate school and I was one week out of medical school. We were a little crazy and a little thrilled. Before us lay a move to a new city, and the beginning of new jobs for both. We were, to use the above analogy, an empty field, full of building materials. It was for God, and our own love and effort, to make the structure; to make a family, a temple of good things, a unity to care for one another and survive and thrive in the world.

Anyone who knew us well during those early days would say that the construction was, at times, a messy business. There was romance and argument, conflict and communion. There were days and nights apart due to work and there were amazing trips together which united us. Like a house rising from the dust, we took shape. Later, in time, the house was ‘in the dry,’ and it was a matter of decorating and beautifying the marriage; the comfortable, well furnished rooms with trust and comfort and hope and laughter, and then to bring children and turn them loose inside it.

Our marriage has lasted this quarter century and grown better and more beautiful every single day. I would not trade it for anything, nor her for anyone. We belong together. We have become, in every way, our perfect match. (A thing, young couples, that is seldom discovered but usually made.) Oh, we still have work to do. A room to add, a wall to paint, a rough edge to sand. But all in all, the whole thing is simply magnificent. Time and effort, God and devotion will do that.

And to anyone out there wondering why they don’t have it yet, I say this: don’t put down the tools until you’re satisfied. Keep learning and growing and adding and building. And before you know it, you’ll step back and realize that the marriage you built looks perfect to everyone else. And you can smile at each other because you know that there are secret flaws. But that they don’t matter a bit because even they help hold the thing together, stick and stone, heart and soul.

So happy anniversary to my Wild Irish Rose! Thank you working with me all these years to get it right.

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