Friday, January 12, 2018

FORTY YEARS TOGETHER

Larry and Karen Wedding, 1968, Olathe, KS

APRIL 20, 1968-APRIL 20, 2008

My wife Karen and I celebrated our forty-year anniversary three months before breast cancer took her life as I held her hand.  So, it was no small coincidence that when I casually heard the lyrics to a new release of a Jason Isbell track on my Google home device that my head snapped around and it had my full attention.  The title of the song is If We Were Vampires which on first blush makes no sense whatsoever.  But I downloaded the track from The Nashville Sound and began to understand the lyrics.  The songwriter has known life, and the common destiny we all share, and this song needs to be shared by every couple on the planet.  Once I comprehended the lyrics, I understood the title:

"If we were vampires and death was a joke,
I wouldn’t feel the need to hold your hand…
Maybe time running out is a gift.
I'll give every second I can find."

I’ve had previous conversations with friends and couples about the elephant in the room when they come to realize later in life that barring a tragic accident, one of the two of them will some day be left to carry on without the other.  That realization can take the sting out of any petty offense or argument that is presently irritating them.  Neither should ever go to bed angry.  Of course, we’ve been given life to live to the fullest and we should do just that.  And if the time comes when one is left to spend some time alone, we should honor that bond and carry on, knowing that this life is only a finite segment of our existence and death is simply a transition from time to eternity.  And that spiritual existence is one spent in the presence of our creator with our loved ones in that beautiful forever.  Our time apart is relatively short in that context.  Ironically, the refrain of the song says it all:

"It's knowing that this can't go on forever.
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone.
Maybe we'll get 40 years together.
One day I'll be gone,
One day you'll be gone."

1 comment:

  1. Yes, in our marriage we should realize that one of us will likely have to spend some days alone. As a widow, it is not an easy road.

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