TheBanyanTree: IN THE BEGINNING

[Sharon Mack]

IN THE BEGINNING

In the beginning, I would have to say, my third, and to-date my final
marriage was the perfect marriage for me. It is the way I would want a
new relationship to be if ever it were to happen for me again. Whenever
I would go to a wedding shower, I would always say to the bride-to-be,
"If you are half as happy as I am, you will have a wonderful
life!"  That's how happy I was.

The elements that made it so happy were the underlying friendship we
had and the respect for one another's individuality.  We had a lot of
interests that were the same but for those that differed, space was
allowed so that we could individually pursue them.  We were the kind of
couple that could go and have a beer and a sandwich and sit and talk for
hours.  It wasn't always about work and kids. We could share theater
and movies and music.  We covered politics, religion, and theologies of
every kind.

We differed on activities.  He was athletic; I was not.  I liked to
read, he did not.  We both liked gardening and we both liked cooking. 
He liked hunting and fishing.  I liked fishing.  We both loved the
outdoors and we both liked camping.  He liked hiking, I liked reading;
he ran (not jogged) seven miles a day, I sat in the sun, got a tan and
read (you can tell what I did when he was doing his physical thing!). 
He was Hispanic and African-American.  He did not need a tan.

We jived in the bedroom, too.  I did not read in the bedroom.

Neither of us did drugs but we both enjoyed occasional social drinking.
 We had mutual friends; we had separate friends.  We liked one
another's friends. We loved our kids and shared parenting.  He
could change a diaper (and did) as well as I could and he never shirked
helping out with the housework.

He could wallpaper, he could do carpentry, he could lay brick and
block, and he knew plumbing.  There wasn't anything he could not do.
He was a musician.  He played harmonicas and sang.  He had a husky,
dusty voice that gave me chills and made me smile and feel sexy.  I
loved the way he said my name.  He laughed at my jokes and thought I was
cute!  No one had ever thought I was cute before.

We were married for almost ten years.  The first six of those years
were amazing and then shockingly it began to deteriorate.  Slowly at
first but gaining speed all the time, we spiraled downward.  The
recession of the 70's came.  He lost his job; we lost the house.  He
couldn't find work.  They weren't hiring white men; they surely
weren't hiring men of color.  I tried to help, but the more I did the
worse he seemed to feel.  He lost all respect for himself and then for
me, and then for the family.  He started drinking and then came the
drugs.  He lost himself.  He lost us.

He died in 1995.  Between the cancer and the drugs I don't know which
one contributed the most to his death.  I didn't know he was dead for
two years.  We had left him and our home in 1983.  He never saw us
again.

Ah, in the beginning it was the perfect relationship, the perfect
marriage.