WHAT WERE WE THINKING?

           

              That married life would be a bed of roses, since we'd pledged our vows in the Idaho Falls Temple of the LDS Church and covenanted to one another an eternity together?  I think we knew better, but...we did it anyway!  45 years ago today.  Like all married couples, we've been through our share of trials and tailspins, heartaches and heartthrobs, exhilaration and humiliation, but eight--counting Debbie, our adopted daughter-children, seventeen grandchildren, and four greats, debts, job losses, illnesses, tragedy, comedy, pathos, highlights and lowlights later, we've come through the 45 years with flying colors--ready to tackle the come-what-mays of old age with vim and vigor, fear and trembling.
             

                 Our introduction to the new experiences that await us with the coming of old age began March 29, when Tom had a little tightness in his chest and slight pain between his shoulder blades while we were walking along the River Walk.  In the early hours of March 31, doctors performed triple bypass heart surgery on the man who'd been proclaimed "the healthiest 77 year old that he'd ever treated" by his doctor just a few months before.  Many of you reading this post have been there-done that, and I don't care to repeat the gory details.  However, I do want to express deep gratitude to God for the countless tender mercies which He and others bestowed upon us throughout the surgery and recovery period.  There are so many stories to tell of kindnesses large and small, but I'll only share a couple of small ones and one great big one.

                Hospital staff seemed surprised that two people could be married so long.  "How do you do it?" they'd ask.  Not an easy question to answer.  In our case, we've always loved each other and wanted to be together.  The first minute I saw Tom as he was lying in ICU linked to multiple tubes and machines, white as a ghost, I wanted desperately to touch him, to hold his hand, to remind him how much I loved him.  The ever-enthusiastic nurse kept exclaiming, "Doesn't he look great?  He looks wonderful!"  He certainly didn't look great, but I took his limp hand, whispered "I love you," and heard garbled whispers which I knew were "I love you too."

                 On another occasion, Tom was suffering because he just couldn't tolerate the inpalatable "heart healthy" hospital fare.  I thought long and hard about smuggling in some contraband for him from the hospital's cafeteria, but I'm an obedient servant and couldn't bring myself to disobey the law.  A nurse, sympathetic to Tom's plight, winked at me and said, "Have your sweetie here bring you something from the cafeteria.  We don't mind."  No goodies but...

                   Our children rallied to our cause.  I certainly learned how to use the group discussion part of my cell phone service.  Texts flew as each child checked in, offering prayers, sympathy, and pledges of love from Saudi Arabia, Hawaii, etc.  Tom's biggest concern was that our dining room was filled with all of the furniture and furnishings from our study because he had been remodeling the study.  He wished there was someone to haul all of the paraphernalia back into the study before he got home, and we had company.  Darla and Vale were asked to do that job, but they'd been so busy driving back and forth to Portland to run errands for me and see Dad that they put the job off until the night before Tom was to come home.  They figured it may take them all night to haul all the heavy furniture back in that Dad had single-handedly taken out.   However to their rescue came a whole SUV full of cousins who had stopped by.

      A few weeks later, while Tom was recuperating, our knights on white horses came to help, not only Darla and Vale, but sons Tom and Mark.  Tom, our youngest, came from LA, and Mark, the oldest came from Saudi Arabia.  What a fun two or three days with at least half of our children at home for a while, and the other half cheering them on.  Darla and Vale were in the early stages of their move to Oklahoma and got lots of help with their packing, cleaning and mapping out the trip.

         Mark and Tom are half-brothers--15 years apart.  Tom was a toddler when Mark went off to college, and, for Tom, Mark was one of the adults, and he knew Mark's children better than he did his own brother.  These two men worked like demons for three days:  painting, putting in a beautiful wood floor, cleaning, and assisting in the re-wiring of the whole house and BONDING.  I heard conversations ranging from Who do you think Mom and Dad will vote for in the upcoming election to bugs, lizards, and creatures who inhabit the Saudi Arabian deserts.  I call the wood floor in the study, the MarTom floor because, between Tom's artistic flair and Mark's precision, the floor is truly a work of art.

         Truly we are blessed.  We're still together--hanging on to every moment with each other we can have, enjoying our wonderful children and their posterity, doing our thing.  I've always remembered this little quote which I underlined years ago as I read Mark Twain's Diary of Adam and Eve:    "Wherever she was, there was Eden."  I am in Eden.