Happy Anniversary

Today is a special day for me.  Sixty years ago today Wally and I stood in the chapel of University Christian Church in Fort Worth and promised “‘til death do us part.”  We were young and in love.  I thought we would live “happily ever after.”  

Things did not work out that way.  It took me 30 years to figure out what went wrong.  I won’t try to tell abut it in a paragraph. 

We went out to dinner on our wedding anniversary.  On our 21st we were having difficulties.  To make amends I made a reservation and gave Wally a $20 bill.  In those days dinner at a nice restaurant cost $6 a person, leaving enough for a drink and tip.  I asked for a glass of champagne.  The waiter said they only sold champagne by the bottle.  Wally, unwilling to spend a penney of his own to celebrate with me, asked for a glass of sherry.  I should have known our marriage was blowing away in the Chicago wind. .  

Generally, the years we lived away from Chicago were happy ones for me; the years in Chicago were difficult. 

We were living in the Chicago suburbs when David and I went to Paris.  In picking up those tickets and going without Wally, I slipped out of Wally’s control.  I still loved him.  We had problems, particularly with our son Karl.  I thought we could work through them together.

In the year after David and I returned from Europe, Wally became increasingly violent.  On the night he put his big hands around my throat and choked me, I finally realized that unconditional love was not going to work.  I filed for divorce.   

In 1983, when David graduated from high school, I sold the house in Illinois, bought a ticket with a six-month return, and flew off to Europe.  On August 3 I was in Norway, eating smorgasbord at a hotel on Sonja Fjord.  As I sampled Baltic shrimp, herring, Danish cheese, and all the other Scandinavian delicacies, I thought, “This is better than sitting in my room crying with regret over what “could have been.” 

I looked across the table and said to my companion, a very young man I met on the bus crossing the mountains, “This has been a lovely evening.” 

A year later Wally told me he was going to remarry and forget about me.  I cried all the way to New Mexico, wet Kleenex piling up on the seat beside me.  Two weeks later I went to the Senior Center in Albuquerque and started enjoying the most fun in my entire life. 

In the following years I took someone else out to dinner every August 3.  For several years it was Manny.  There was a hiatus during the four years I was married to John.  When I told Inez the reason I wanted to take her to dinner, she refused and then reluctantly agreed.  We had such a good time, she said, “Any time you want to celebrate an anniversary, I’ll go with you.”

Tonight I am taking my brother Don and his wife Mary to Red Lobster.