Loner Love Story

My parents will have been married for 46 years today - and in this day and age that is something to celebrate.

They were born 14 days apart in a little hospital that is now a nursign home in Indiana. They were raised in the same parish, had First communion, confession, and Confirmation in the same school in that same little town.

In high school, my mom spent summers up at the lake water skiing. My dad spent them working at the family lumber company when he wasn't playing baseball or practicing football. If memory serves me correctly, they had a little family hamburger stand down by Riverside park - the Checkerboard I think.

My folks both walked to school, and my mom had to pass my dad's house on the way, so he later admitted that he would wait until he saw her and happen to be on the sidewalk at the same time.
They started dating their senior year, and things went well until my dad went to the girls choice dance with someone other than my mom. Luckily, he came to apologize on Ash Wednesday, ashes still in place - and my mom forgave him.

Dad went away to University of Detroit on a football scholarship, mom stayed and went to secretarial school. Since his parents had not completed college, there was a lot of pressure from My grandfather for my dad to finish college before he took on a wife and the possibility of children.

They were engaged at Indiana Beach, back when the Beach had piers that overlooked the lake. They had come to a dance at the club there, and dad walked her out to the beach and proposed. Indiana Beach has always had a special family meaning, and we go there often in the summer even though it is hokey - because it is where our family started.

They were married a year later - at the same church they went to as children. My dad jokes that he will have been baptized married and buried all at the same church. Mom had a beautiful white dress with a long train, Dad looks young and handsome in the pictures, surrounded by all of his family.

They lived in Detroit for a while - dad finished college with a degree in mathematics and got a job with Ford Motors. They tried having babies, but it just didn't happen for them. Things got tough and they decided to consider adoption. Dad was transferred to Germany for a bit, helping put in computer systems back when computers took up the whole room. Not long after things worked out (at least from my perspective) and I was adopted. Two and a half years later, my brother was adopted as well.

There have been a lot of toils - my dad is trying to turn my mother's hair white - forcing us to live through a plane crash, a heart attack and now Lymphoma. They still hold hands, he still send cards and flowers, she still folds his undies and cooks things because he likes them. They go on vactation together - they sit and do nothing together. Mostly, they just manage to be together after all this time - and they make it look easy.

I asked my dad once how they made it so long - he told me to choose well.