TWO LIVES, INTERTWINED

The long-winded, egotistical King Friday XIII and his bride, the level-headed Queen Saturday... the late Fred Rogers’s perfectly imagined proxies for Yours Truly and the Missus.

Thirty-six years ago today, in the sweaty heart of Foat Wuth, Texas, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I were wed.

“Sweaty Heart,” in our case, was more than a snarky turn of phrase that (coincidentally) sounds like a popular Term of Endearment.  Heart, the extremely popular band led by sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson, was staying at the Hilton in downtown Foat Wuth the same time we were... but their weekend visit was just another stop on the road for them.  For us, that weekend was life-changing.

Since then, we have managed to deal with six household relocations, having two children and raising them to adulthood, losing two parents (SWMBO’s father and my mother), and all of the other little exigencies of life.  We have grown older together, maturing and mellowing like fine wine rather than cheese, which becomes ever more blue-veined and stinky with the passage of time.  (At least, that’s how I see it.)


Me and the Missus.

When I look into her penetrating blue-grey eyes - she can turn one of them wonky when she’s being playful - I see that same lovely young woman I first met as the year 1975 wound down to a close... with a few differences.  For, to me, she is more beautiful with every passing year.  It’s the beauty that grows out of warmth, comfort, familiarity, lack of pretense.

Thirty-six is an especially meaningful number.  If you’re buying eggs, it’s three dozen... but if you parse it with the numerological techniques of us Red Sea Pedestrians, it’s twice eighteen, a number which, when written in Hebrew, uses the same characters as the word chai (חי) - life.  Thirty-six is double chai, and what better symbol could there be of the intertwining of two lives in love and marriage?

I’m looking forward to the next thirty-six.