Promises Of Love Endure On Effort

‘Them, too?”

That’s the disbelieving question I asked when Marilyn told me about some friends of ours whose marriage is falling apart. I don’t know why I’m surprised; lately it seems like every couple we know is splitting up.

My wife seems to take it in stride, better able than I to accept that these things happen. I guess I’m naive. Guess I’ve listened to too many love songs. Not that I can still hear them as I did when I was young. There is an edge of lamentation now that I didn’t catch back then, a scrim of bitter sharpening the sweet. It makes Al Green sound keening and sad as he sings, “Let’s stay together.”

And then there’s the old Champaign song that says, “Some people can love one another for life. How ‘bout us?”

Indeed. Next month, it’ll be 16 years since my wife and I married. Sixteen years of children, challenges and change. Sixteen years of a far-from-perfect man and a less-than-flawless woman, holding on. Sixteen years.

How ‘bout us?

The question pokes me in the ribs sometimes as I watch her cooking dinner or sleeping. After all, we walk the same path our friends do, face the same turns on the same rough road. How ‘bout us? Why couldn’t what happened in their homes happen in ours?

Change comes, after all. I’m not the man who married her; she’s not the woman who promised herself to me.

And here another song imposes itself. The melody is simple, the orchestration unadorned, but Bruce Springsteen’s voice lifts and carries the words. “If as we’re walking, a hand should slip free, I’ll wait for you. And should I fall behind, wait for me.”

It takes years to reach the stage where you can sing that promise and know what it means, children.

I sure didn’t know 16 years ago. I don’t think my young friend Darrin does now. If tomorrow troubles him, he gives no sign. All I’ve seen are expectation and hope as he prepares to be married.

Seems like just yesterday he and Mary Ann were on the way to their prom, posing in the flash of instant cameras and looking for all the world like they had escaped from the top of a wedding cake. Now they’re doing it for real, and you wonder if they understand what they’re getting into. Do they know how things can change?

Not that it matters. When they take their vows, I will be unconditionally happy for them. Even knowing the things they don’t yet know, even understanding that change has sharp edges, even feeling the ground shake. Even then.

Because it’s worth it, isn’t it? Worth the risk and the fear just to reach without looking and feel another hand clasp yours. To get lost and know that, somewhere ahead, she waits without being asked.

I am saddened to see friends going separate ways, sobered by how many times I’ve asked that question lately: “Them, too?” But I am also reminded that there’s a difference between promises and guarantees.

A guarantee requires no exertion, but you have to work at a promise. A guarantee can’t fail, but a promise is guarded from failure only by vigilance and will.

A guarantee comes from Sears or Circuit City. A promise, from us.

Few things are less secure or require a greater investment of faith. But that’s what a marriage comes down to in the end, isn’t it? Promises, promises.

Some days, you fear that it’s not enough. Some days you hear “How ‘bout us?” and you’re standing there with your promises hanging out and you think you must be crazy. Some days you feel like the emperor parading around in his wonderful new clothes. Some days.

Then you stumble from the darkness and there she is like she always was, and you wonder why you ever doubted. The fear recedes like night sweats and thunderstorms, leaving a calm in its wake.

The promise carries no warrant, mind you, yet the promise is kept. I know few feelings better than that, few truths sweeter than this: If I fall behind, she waits for me.

xxxx