TO HAVE & TO HOLD

June 16th. Our day. That was the day the knot was tied, the vows were said, the cake was eaten. The day it all started was actually weeks and months before that. I don't remember it being an actual moment; more like an unfolding. We didn't shake a Magic 8 Ball. There was no Rock, Paper, Scissors, or coins tossed. There was a bit of ignorant bliss, romance, naivette, hormones, young love and belief that this was a match made in heaven. At least that's the way I remember it.

We didn't use the traditional vows in our marriage ceremony. We wrote our own and they definitely had an early 70s zeitgeist of peace and love to them, but they were sincere and have stood the test of time.

When I speak of traditional vows I'm talking about those that go something like this:

I, ____, take you, ____, to be my husband/wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.

First, we didn't even know what "to have" and "to hold" meant. Next, we were kids. We were invulnerable to stuff like worse, poorer, and sickness much less death. Why bring all that crap into the celebration?

As I think about this anniversary of our wedding, I'm 52 years older and I still am not sure I understand what have and hold mean. I could guess; and I will before the essay is finished. All these years later I don't know that I would want those words in our vows if we were to do one of those vow-renewal things. That sounds so possession-y, like some kind of claim of ownership. Like maybe: "I promise TO HAVE control over you and TO HOLD you back from being your own person" or something.

I think my attitude has been marred by all the focus on that twisted theology that religious fundamentalists call "complementarianism". I would love to write about how I feel about it but I'm not going to let it be a dark cloud over my intent of writing a heartfelt sentiment about how blest out of my heart, head and soul I am to have been married to My Amazing Missus for more than half a century.

So, here's how I'm viewing and understanding having and holding. Let's start with the dark side of having/holding.

Remember poor old Peter? The guy that was known for eating a lot of pumpkin; so much in fact that he has been known for eons as Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater?

He had a relationship problem. Or, was his problem a wayward woman, or maybe he had signed up for a doctrine that somehow believes that wives are subordinate to husbands. The question that other men seeking submissive wives might have is: how in the world did he get her into that pumpkin shell and in what state was she in that he was able to keep her there "very well"?

Sometimes seeking to have and hold turns into an ugly form of possesion--dehumanizing another to the point that they exist only for the other's use: like a commodity.

Let me illustate with the this little excerpt from a newspaper article:

The drab free port zone near the Geneva city center, a compound of blocky gray and vanilla warehouses surrounded by train tracks, roads and a barbed-wire fence, looks like the kind of place where beauty goes to die. But within its walls, crated or sealed cheek by jowl in cramped storage vaults, are more than a million of some of the most exquisite artworks ever made. --New York Times.

I realize that it seems like I'm using an inanimate object: art, to try to make my point about being fully human, created in the image of The Creator. But think of it as representing something bigger. Let's call it "beauty". Somethings are just not meant to be KEPT. Having and holding are so much more than that.

Let me try it this way. If you are a parent or a grandparent, or maybe an aunt or an uncle, this next sentence will cause a burst of images and memories, joys and maybe a few sorrows, but sublime all the same. Ready?

We HAVE a new baby and I got to HOLD him.

Can you feel the honor in that? The joy? The desire to share the news.

Here is a picture of My Amazing Missus and me. It is moments after the birth of Jeremiah our youngest Grand. We are crammed in the window seat of the hospital in Enid, Oklahoma, with all of the other Grands, taken January 19, 2022 at 2:11p.

Had he been born a few weeks later the hospital would have been locked down because of the pandemic. Selfishly, I cannot fathom what it would have cost me emotionally to not be able to be there for that moment--that first moment of HAVEing a new grandson and HOLDing him.

That's what it means to me to have and to hold. Obviously I didn't HAVE him. His beautiful mom Brooke did all that work with steady support from his dad, Kyle. And, obviously HOLDing is more than physical, literal holding.

If I haven't made my point yet, then I'm a lousy point maker. It's just that if I were to tell my bride of 50-something years that I am committed to having and holding, I would want her to know it is all about cherishing and celebrating and sharing.

I understand the concept of one thing complementing another. I'm intimately familiar with peanut butter and jelly. But, in a true complementary relationship one thing is not subjugated to the other. That is an ugly distortion, and it is one that I'm vulnerable to. In fact, I've done that kind of crap to others. Hopefully I've haven’t justified it by being a christian, a male, old, white, democrat, introvert, bald, cynical, peanut butter & jelly loving jerk.

Happy Anniversary to My Amazing Missus. Like the old song says, "I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow." I'm still here; to have and to hold from this day forward.

STOLEN

IT ISN’T THE GRINCH THIS TIME. So, who or what is stealing Christmas and Thanksgiving and so many other treasured times and traditions.

It would be easy just to say: Covid. But New Zealand, much of Canada and others have shown Covid to be containable. That doesn’t matter though.

Here, where we live, who we are, virus spread has caused us to miss watching our Grandkids at the Hinton Fair, and piano recitals and dance recitals. You might think I’m being sarcastic. Nope. I actually love recitals.

Our kids have been wonderfully understanding. They know old Pops is old and wired shut after heart surgery a few years back. They have found ways for us to be with them in the safest ways possible. Through love, creativity, grace, frustration, prayer and cursing we’ve gotten from March to November.

I know, I know. Many will say I am stupidly overreacting. That this is not real, just made up and politically driven, or, as some believe, “we’ve turned the corner and it will just disappear soon.” I’m happy being a live and well stupid overreactor.

Each year we gather with our kids on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We eat, play, watch TV and live like we’re thankful, because we are, without taking that for granted. We all gather round for a family picture which we will have printed and sent along with our annual Christmas card to a long list of people, many of which probably say, “Why are these people still mailing Christmas cards and why do they think we would want a picture of their family?”

At some point, during holiday-time My Amazing-Missus will lay out for the kids an abundance of building materials (candy and frosting) and the basic structure so they can all make their very own gingerbread house. No rules. You get to make it just like you want to.

It is a beautifully free and creative process. It’s good that our clan is good at that because it is going to take some creativity to celebrate the holidays this year in a safe and sacrificial way. But if any crew can do it—ours can.

Here are some of the ideas we’re tossing around: Mimi (aka: My Amazing-Missus) is strategizing how to make a gingerbread house building kit for each our two groups: Corey-Kara-Karlee-Harper-Nora and Kyle-Brooke-Haddi-Everly-Malachi-Jeremiah. This year we’ll sit back and watch the fun on Zoom or FaceTime. Then when it comes bedtime we’ll rejoice just a bit that the kids are at their own houses high from all the sugar they’ve consumed that should have gone into the building of their house but went into them instead.

We’ll watch the weather closely and hope for an unseasonably warm day when we can travel to see them and spend time together outside. Maybe we’ll tail-gate around a fire, eat turkey hot dogs with chili, make s’mores and open gifts. Maybe we’ll sing a song or two and we’ll read that story—the one about where it all started; in a manger.

And that important family picture? In our bunch we have photographers, Lightroom experts, and one who teaches Photoshop for a living (along with a few other subjects).

We’ll be fine, and Thankful and Merry. Who knows? Maybe a new tradition will emerge.

L to R: Malachi, Haddi, (Jeremiah), Karlee, Nora, Harper, Everly

AND THE AWARD GOES TO

I don’t need the mug, the medal, or the t-shirt. I want the award.

It’s good (isn’t it) to have a few things on your list that you would like to attain to, even though the reach is too far? You know, like: bringing world peace, writing the next great novel, playing drums with Diana Krall, etc. Numerous grade-school teachers documented my “vivid imagination and daydreaming” on my report cards. I took it as a compliment, though I’m not sure it was intended that way. I still daydream; it’s just that the dreams have changed.

Our dreams do change, don’t they? The good news is we still get to have them. Even the Bible promises that while the youngsters get to have visions, we men-of-a-certain-age get to dream dreams. What’s the old line about not letting your dreams be replaced by regrets?

Just in the past few weeks I’ve attended two memorial services: one was for Orlie Sawatzky,the grandfather of my daughter-in-law, Kara. the other was for my father. The heart of the service for Orlie was when his grandchildren told stories about this man they loved deeply. When planning my Dad’s service I said, let’s steal that idea and let his grandkids share their stories. It too was the heart of the service.

As I listened to all of these grandfather stories, I realized my dream of being the BEST POPS EVER was just that; a dream. I’ll never surpass those two. Still, I can strive to be my version of best.

Now let’s play the “If Only...” game. If only I had the energy to keep up with one of my grands, much less 6-soon to be 7. There’s not enough coffee. I try to do the yoga and walking, hoping that I can build some stamina, but it’s like that slurping sound as you finish off a strawberry malt and you’re trying to get that last bit. Don’t get me wrong: I can play checkers, Uno, Legos, and dolls all day. I’m up for back to back to back to back episodes of Peppa Pig or Paw Patrol, and I’ll read books as long as they want to read books. You should see me watch them dance, ride their bikes, do cartwheels, jump from the chair to the sofa. I’m happy to peel an apple they are probably going to take one bite of. But none of that is going to win any awards. If only I had the funds to take them all to Disneyland or world or whatever. If only I didn’t hate Branson and Silver Dollar City. If only my dermatologist would let me play in the sun without a big hat, 350 SPF sunscreen and a long-sleeved shirt. If only I weren’t paralyzed with fear about one of them getting bit by a disease carrying mosquito or tick, a wasp, spider, scorpion, or the neighbors yapping shiiity little shih tzu dog. If only... Know what I mean?

So, I listened to these amazing young adults: the Sawatzky’s and Fuller’s, talk about their grandfathers and I thought to myself what is the common denominator here? What is the thread that runs through these stories that turns into the fabric of a really good granddad?

And there it was! Orlie Sawatzky and William Fuller gave them a whole lot of presents. That right. They showered their grandkids with presents.

Oh, wait. That’s a typo. That should have been presence. That’s what they did. They gave their grandkids their presence—their undivided, unconditional, never-ending presence. They were just there for them. And even now, through the memories and the stories, these two old saints are still there for them.

I can do that.

Remembering

“Everything changes and nothing remains still. You cannot step twice into the same stream.”

— Heraclitus

LAST AUTUMN, my Amazing-Missus and I attended her high school class reunion. I wrote a bit about it.

While at the reunion I was visiting with a lady who had been married to one of my schoolmates. As we visited I was struck with a spell of melancholy. For some reason I have no connections with anyone that I went to school with. It’s not that I didn’t have friends; maybe I’m just not a good cultivator, which is a little weird to me because a role I truly cherish is that of being a creative catalyst—one who brings creative people together in collaboration.

But then a pop on Facebook, the social media thing. Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you’ve been politically manipulated by it. A name I recognized was there on the FB, the name of a girl that I considered to be a friend in grade school, junior high and high school. Not a “girlfriend” though. Her sights were set much higher.

One thing lead to another and a few weeks ago, we met for lunch. Karla, Arlene and me. What a gift it was. She was able to tell me about many of our classmates. I felt reconnected somehow. And at the same time I realized that Heraclitus was right. You cannot step twice into the same stream. 

Karla told us there was a group of Trojan alum having a meet-up at the Methodist church if we wanted to stop by. So we did. We walked into the church and followed the signs to the Fellowship Hall. We could see through the open doors the group gathered. “This isn’t them”, I thought. “This is the church’s senior adult group.” And then it dawned on me. All these people other than me have aged, and come to find out, many are gone.

I dug out my old yearbook, from my junior year 1968, and scanned the pictures of my classmates, pausing on some to recall a memory or two. Some of these, I realized, I had sat in class with year after year and I knew very little about them. Missed opportunities no doubt.

The tradition back then, when the yearbooks were handed out at the end of the school year was to hand your book to others for them to sign. I read the entries in my book through a much older lens. For the most part, we didn’t look to far ahead: “Hope you have a great summer!” Some entries were nostalgic: “Well another year is behind us…” Some prophetic: “Stay just the way you are and you’ll go far,” words I’ve never seen on one of those motivational posters.

We didn’t know it at the time but things were simpler and yet they weren’t. 1968 is notorius for riots, protests, and culture quaking moments. But without the WWW, 24-hour news outlets, a strange innocence prevailed; or at least that’s the way I remember it.

On the 50th anniversary of my senior year, I wonder about the Senior Class of 2019. Are they having a good summer? Are they aware of the crap-storm in Washington D.C.? Do they care? Have the active-shooter drills at their school become as common place as the atomic bomb drills did for us? Is there a thread or two of innocence left? Is there someone writing words of encouragement on the flyleaf of their yearbook? 

If I could write a prelude of sorts in their yearbook, I might say something like this:

Make a new friend this year. Not one of those social media “friends”, but a real one, maybe one that is different from you: race-wise, sex-wise, faith-wise—you know, different. When you get together with your new friend, put away the phones and talk. Talk about the future, your fears, your faith.

Be creative. Make a contribution. Express gratitude. Do something that makes your palms sweaty. Pay attention—not just in class but to what is happening around you. Remember: “Everything changes and nothing remains still. You cannot step twice into the same stream.” — Heraclitus

---

Just a note: I attended school at Jenks Public Schools through my Junior year, but transferred and graduated from Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

P.S.: Thank you Karla Newman Taber for being a friend.