A Technicolor Dreamcoat?

He saw her at a dance. He can not recall what she wore. He can just recall the moment he saw her. He can only recall the feeling in his stomach. The urgency, in his being, his destination.

He turned to his friend and said 'I am going to marry Her!'

The friend had been listening to the music and scoping the room for a girl to dance with.The friend was just about to cross the room when it dawned on him, his friend had just something?

What? Who? Who are you going to marry?

Her, That girl over there...The boy's friend adjusts his glasses ands takes a better look..

Oh, I don't think so! I went to grade school with her... And you are not going to marry her! You are not on her radar, Bub! She has career plans... Marriage is not in her mind...Have? Have you, even met her?

No, But I am going to right now.

And with that comment suspended in the air, the boy left his friend alone at the other end of the room and went to meet his wife.

She does not recall the dance. She does not recall any urgency upon meeting him. She just remembers dancing all night with him. Every dance was with him.

And on the third date He proposed, at a movie theatre over the buttered popcorn and a soda. He gulped down his pride, straightened himself up, stared at the curtain and asked... 'Will you marry me?' No ring. Just a statement/question.

She laughed as the curtain went up at the movie theatre and the song 'More' by Bobby Darrin started to play. He laughed and said, 'They are even playing our song.'

He took her laughter as a 'Yes' for it certainly was not a no....

He was on top of the world and was glad that his destination was sealed.

Little did She know.

The following day, He went to her family's home to ask her father. Her father was a large, hulking, new immigrant with hands the size of baseball mitts. English was not his first language. He was an overpowering figure to this scrawny nineteen year old boy who was all bones through his suit. This man escaped through the mountains, with his wife and eldest daughter when his family was being persecuted in his old country.This man had helped build a railroad, had slept in ditches to bring his family to this country. This father had been a farmer. This man knew sorrow. This man knew great happiness.This man wanted the best for his youngest daughter.

This boy went through the doors of his betroved house, as He knew He would bring her happiness. I know He thought this, as how else could He have had the courage to go through the door?

I do not know what they talked about. But permission was granted to this boy on the cusp of his twentieth birthday. On the cusp of a new life.

When the girl returned home from a day of shopping with her girlfriends, She was flabbergasted that He was serious. That He DID propose in the movie theatre.
And when She really thought about it, when She sat down and looked at him, her heart filled with joy. A joy that She did not know that She was in need of, until then. She realized that She did say 'Yes!' at the movie theatre, ... And that She, She who had not looked for him, now, could not imagine life without him.

They married 42 years ago.They married in sunshine with the father of the bride crying the entire way down the aisle with his youngest daughter in duchess satin.This boy and girl, this husband and wife, married with a trust of the future with the security of a love everlasting in their hearts.

Beginnings are always beautiful to talk about. They are what most people can relate to,as everyone has had a beginning, just as everyone has known an end.

And I am happy to say, there has not been an end.

The middle is the hard part to talk about. The middle is where it is messy. the middle is what gives the fabric of life its substance. The middle is filled with births and deaths, the middle is filled with sunrises and sunsets, the daily coffees at the kitchen table, the cups of tea in the evenings in the reckroom, the laughter and the incredible pain, the lovemaking and the fights,the dances and the walks, the friends and the family, the moments of endless phone calls to each oher, the loveletters that are still left on the kitchen table with their nicknames for eachother enscribed at the end, the days are filled still with each other, the nights are still spent on a double bed, the nights and the days, the hours and the weeks, can all conveniently blend into one, in a narrative.

But when I think of trying to even encapsolate this couple I am at a loss. A loss because it all would seem trite. The fabric of this marriage, this life together has many interesting stitches, Some have given way in the centre where there a huge gaping holes and other spots have had shoddy patches placed overtop. There is duchess satin and Egyptian cotton, there is burlap as there are parts othe heavens, there are a few stars and many tears, and I do not know how but I am certain that laughter is embedded in the fabric, just as trust and compassion, but just as there is this, there is also rage, there is also anger and there is passion that can not be wasted on the faint of heart. This beautiful blanket allows for others to come in and be enveloped in its beauty. This blanket covers the couple at night, as they have their gentle slumbers or turbulant nightmares. This blanket nourished me as a young girl and as a grown woman.

This blanket helped me through a few storms.It has been a beacon of hope for many.

And on September 18th.I hope that you will raise a glass with me and toast the 42 years of my parents. A lovestory with a beginning and a middle... And for the grace of god, or fate, or whatever you want to call it, no end.