I Do, Again
Four days after Christmas my niece, Mary, floated down a wooden staircase on a cloud of white lace and ruffles into a new life. I wondered, as I almost always do on these occasions, whether or not the new bride and groom could possibly know what they were getting themselves into.
There they stood before God and man, just babies really, pledging themselves to each other. The minister delivered the vows in customary fashion, “Will you take this man, this woman? For better or worse, richer or poorer?” I couldn’t help but question whether any thought had been given as to what “worse” might actually look like. Before my mind had finished running through the list of all that could go wrong, the enthusiastic “I do’s” were uttered, and the deal was sealed.
While there’s nothing wrong with the traditional vows, I wonder if they shouldn’t be revamped to read more like the Corinthian love chapter. Instead of pledging to stick with it if one of you loses all the money or gets sick, how about, “Will you bear all things, believe, and hope all things? Will you give your word to endure all things? Can you commit here and now that for the rest of your life you will not be rude or angry or self-seeking?” Let’s be honest. No one could live up to that.
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
When you’re standing at the altar with love’s gleam in your eye, do you really believe that anything but the best lies ahead. In the space of a lifetime, the path of matrimony takes you places you never could have imagined.
As the years come and go, the daily grind takes its toll. You make a home, build a career, raise kids. The days steadily tick by until suddenly you look up and realize the better part of a life has passed by and what of the plans you’d made. Inevitably, the new wears off, and the shine fades.
Chasing dreams often takes a backseat to keeping house, paying bills, and making sure the children’s needs are taken care of. After years of clothes strewn on the floor, dirty dishes in the sink, and messy bathroom counters, you begin to think that this person you once thought hung the moon could at least hang up their clothes.
But love is patient and kind, right?
The years have a way of changing you. Both of you. One day you realize the person sitting across the table from you isn’t the same person you married. The reality is that two people who live together day in and day out are bound to disappoint each other. Hurt each other. When that happens, resentment and self-pity often knock on the door looking for a place to stay. You stand there trying to decide whether or not to let them in until you remember love bears no record of wrongs so you close the door and send them away.
Year after year, you go along with the flow trying to keep your head above water. Then on a day just like any other day while out for a Sunday afternoon drive, a drive you’ve made hundreds of times, you look over and see the wisps of gray hair just above his ear and the tiny lines at the corner of his eye, and your heart grows soft.
For no particular reason, you think of the way he cries during the mushy parts of the movies, and the times you laughed at something so silly no one else on earth would think it was funny. You can still see the baby lying on his chest as they both slept on the couch.
He’s the one who took care of you when you were sick and held your hand when you were scared. You know him, really know him, and he knows you.
Suddenly, everything comes into focus, crisp and clear. He is your one and only. Everything you believed on that day at the beginning is reaffirmed. Only now, it’s been tested and tried. He is yours and you are his to have and to hold from this day forward.
This is what real love looks like. Good days and bad days, the things you like and the things you don’t, painstakingly stitched into an intricate patchwork. Pieces of this and that. Warm and welcoming, but slightly frayed around the edges. Two lives woven together as one.
Love isn’t a ‘one and done’ commitment. It’s a series of “I do’s” spoken over and over again at each crossroads you encounter. Sometimes shouted, sometimes whispered, but always a declaration of courage, faith, and the will to press on.
The minister’s voice announcing my niece and her groom as Mr. and Mrs. pulls me from my thoughts just in time to see the happy couple step off the stage and stroll down the aisle hand-in-hand as man and wife. I think of what lies ahead of them, and I smile.