We had only been married a few weeks. We were moving into a new apartment together. Well the apartment was almost a hundred years old. It was new to us. I finally saw all of his possession's that had been in his mother's storage. I was startled by one item. It was a round piece of poster board. It had a pen and ink sketch of him a few years younger with his flourishing signature underneath.
Why was this image so startling to me? I queried him, "Did you play the drums in the band my dear friend sang lead in?" Now he was startled, "Yes, but how did you know?" was his question.
I was going to college several years before I met my husband. I had all the arrangements made. It was to be my second year in college. For reasons that I thought were good at the time I didn't go. I withdrew from school.
I did go visit my dear friend. She and I had performed in summer stock theater the summer before. She was incredibly talented. She could sing, dance, and act like a professional. She was singing lead in a band. I went to their performance. During a break I said to her, "That big guy who is playing drums, is the best drummer that I've ever heard. (I LOVE drums). He is also really handsome. On the other hand, what a huge ego that man has! I've never seen a drum set with a pen and ink sketch of the drummer with a huge flourishing signature across the bottom.
It had been about ten years since I had seen the drummer and his sign. Obviously he had made a large impression on me. Imagine that seeing that drum front I remembered him. I hadn't realized that he was THAT drummer until then. It definitely made me even more certain that we belonged together.
I fell in love with one of the most creative humans I had ever met. He could sing, dance, act, write, direct, produce, play the drums and the guitar. We sang together every chance that we got.
We faced many, many hard things together. Somehow he could make frightening and awful an adventure. Things were sometimes turbulent in our relationship. We both had gigantic egos, I mean, we were both performers! We were also both the youngest in our families. We actually came close to divorce at one point along our twenty-seven year journey together. It was during one of our rough times that he told me our song was, "Happy to be stuck with you." I felt rather badly about it at the time. Then I listened to the lyrics more closely. He loved me, he loved our children, the family that we created together. He truly was grateful that we were stuck together. He appreciated the years of shared experience, the love that becomes stronger as times relentless march continues.
Twenty seven years was not nearly long enough. He passed away at the age of fifty-four. It has been ten years tomorrow. Gratefully, I still feel him close. I know that his spirit is still watching over this family that he so lovingly helped to create. I am certain that I will continue to love him forever and always.
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