TheBanyanTree: True Love Will Never Die

[Margaret R. Kramer]

It was disappointing to find out Paul and Linda McCartney’s marriage wasn’t
exactly a bed of roses.  It was a marriage that was always held up as the
“perfect marriage;” two people loving each other in a way that was almost
beyond human comprehension.  Now we’ve found out that Paul was a controlling
asshole and Linda contemplated at times on divorcing him.  I suppose that
Beatle money and public pressure kept them together all those years, not
love.

But the news shattered one of my illusions about true love.  I needed to
know at least one couple on earth found that dream of perfect love and made
it last for almost 20 years.  But I should know better than use celebrities
as examples on how to live.  Look at the mess around McCartney’s second
marriage, Brat Pitt leaving Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie, and Ben
Affleck and Jennifer Lopez falling apart before they even got glued
together.

The example I needed to see is actually in my own house, in my own bed, in
my own life.  Nine years ago I answered a penpal ad on AOL and some strange
man answered with so much sexual innuendo that I almost blocked his name on
my AOL account.  We had long and weird IM sessions which lasted for hours.
We exchanged hot emails.  Then we decided to meet in person.

We were both married.  I lived in St Paul and he lived in Milwaukee.  We
decided to meet halfway in Tomah, WI, the cranberry capital of the world.
We made excuses to our spouses and spent a couple of nights together.  Then
a month or so later, we met in Tomah again.  And we had one final meeting in
Milwaukee before everything became clear.  We needed to be together.

We told our spouses.  He left his and I asked mine to move out.  Ray packed
up his stuff and with his son, moved his things into my house.  Our life
together began on May 8, 1998.

As we shifted our things around, we shifted our lives around each other,
too.  Ray learned the Twin Cities area and found a job.  Unlike my first
husband, Ray could fix anything, and soon the house that was falling apart
became whole again as he painted, replaced, and upgraded the rooms inside
and renewed the outside.  I lost a lot of weight and quit smoking.  As they
say, the years passed.

We’ve had good times.  We’ve been on three cruises, have done a couple of
road trips, and spent long weekends at the North Shore.  We enjoy baseball
and fishing and gardening and summer nights.

But preparing the old house for sale, and going through that lengthy process
as the housing market was collapsing, and looking for a new house,
solidified our commitment to each other.  We’ve been through many stressful
events, such as illness and car accidents, and my son, girlfriend, and older
grandson living with us for a year and a half, but nothing was as stressful
for us as preparing to move and then moving.  But the old house was gone and
we finally have “our” house, “our” neighborhood, and “our” massive garage,
well, the garage is really Ray’s, he graciously lets me park my car in
there.

Ray and I have lived together for eight and a half years.  This week, on
Thursday, we’re getting married.  We’re getting married our way, too,
without pomp and circumstance, no flowers, no ring, wearing jeans, and in
front of a judge, in her courthouse room.  Asher and Susan and the boys will
be our witnesses as we say I do and then we’ll go out to dinner.  Ray and I
had the weddings  with all the trimmings for the first time around and it’s
been there, done that.  The outside stuff doesn’t mean much, it’s what is in
our hearts as they beat as one that means everything.

Then we’ll become the Paul and Linda McCartney couple, except with real love
and regard for one another as we move forward in our lives together.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be
careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.
~E.P. Powell