...to reconsider something that you have always held to be a concrete truth. Here's one for you to ponder: The idea that Love is the most powerful bond, an ephemeral emotion between humans that will/can/does eternally form a powerful lasting connection. I was listening to public radio this morning, and heard a story that caused me to rethink this long held opinion.
It was really a review of a band called something like 'out among the willows'. That's not totally correct, but I know it had something to do with willows, and think they were from Canada. The songs in the most recent release was based on a huge cache of letters in the possession of a grandmother of one of the band members. Correspondence sent to the grandmother in one of he northern mid-west states, maybe Michigan, from a man she eventually married. Sent to his beloved, while he was serving in WWII in the south Pacific. She had saved them all these years, and allowed the now-adult, music-writing grandchild to pore over those three hundred missives. Opening a window to history, seeing what the grandfather had written of his life, war-time experience and devotion to his future wife.
I don't think the story I heard mentioned how long they had been married, but the granddad is deceased, fairly recently, in the past two years. And I assume the grandmother is still living. This young adult musician wrote a whole album of songs based on what he wrote to her. Granddad did safely returned to the States, and they married. The last of the saved letters was one written a week before their wedding, with him telling he had just gotten a haircut, and was boarding the bus on the way back to her.
What I learned in all this, not really listening to the words of the couple of songs that we heard snippets of, but perhaps reading between the lines: is of his commitment. Which caused me to ponder long-term marriages I have been a witness to. Not many, but some of well over fifty years in duration. The prime example being my parents, and my mother's parents. I have a couple of clear memories of attending a Golden Anniversary celebration for my maternal grandparents. The party was held at my parents' home, with lots of local people invited. I was probably 18 years old, and I think assigned to the cake cutting/serving position.
And then there are my parents, who were together over fifty years. My mom adamantly did not want any celebration, no party, nothing to bring notice to herself or any recognition from the community where they had lived all their adult lives. I could not let the occasion go totally unrecognized, so wrote everyone in her address book, as well as many others in the community, to ask them to think of the past, write and send letters/notes providing a story, remembrance of some time/event/occasion they had been together. Then I put that correspondence together in a loose-leaf binder to give to them to read, reminisce and enjoy.
What I am thinking is there are times when Commitment is stronger than Love. That, for any number of reasons, long after the spark that kindled the relationship is dies out, the commitment lingers on. I have only my theory, but I am remembering when I used to hear Paul Harvey announce anniversaries on his daily radio show. I now believe that it is more than possible, to the edge of being likely, those weathered mid-western couples who had been out there on the Nebraska prairie for sixty-plus year were there for reasons other than devotion. Or love. That many of those couples were still together out of habit. Or a sense of commitment: believing that saying 'I do' really meant 'I will', and that the commitment involved was stronger than the theory of love lasting till 'death do us part'. Feel free to read between the lines...
Written on Friday, November 7, 2014, as a result of driving from Columbus to Decatur, which was a stopover on my way to TN for the weekend.
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