Wednesday, June 30, 2004
An open letter to newlyweds
(inspired by Jessica's
comment on Saturday)
Dear newly married person,
I'd give you some sage words of advice, but I know from experience that unsolicited
advice has no effect. I'll just try to offer some encouragement instead. Marriage
is a gift of God, and as is the case with all Godly gifts, this world we live
in is overtly hostile to the idea, institution, and practice. Sometimes your
new life will bring you nothing short of absolute bliss. Sometimes your heart
will swell with such joy that you fear it may burst. Sometimes your heart will
ache with the pain you cause and with the pain caused to you.
Sometimes you will find sweet fellowship with others who cherish marriage,
though sometimes you may feel that you're the only one(s) trying to honor your
commitments. Just know that you're not alone,
that others love marriage as much as you do and that marriage can be better
than you ever imagined when you were single. You'll cry tears of disappointment,
anger, fear, happiness, affection, and gratefulness, just as we all do. Remember
that in spite of numerous declarations you'll hear to the contrary, marriage
can be enriching, empowering,
and full
of love.
Here's a bit of unsolicited advice after all. Never
take your marriage or your spouse for granted. Revel in the bliss, grow through
the heartache, laugh through everything, and always
keep your focus on God.
Sincerely,
Curt
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
On birthdays, both happy and not
I celebrated my birthday this past Saturday. The day marked the beginning of
my 33d year on this earth, and it didn't depress me a bit. There have been times
when I have found June 26 to be a day more appropriately devoted to mourning
than
celebration, but this year I felt content about my life and excited about the
future.
In my childhood and adolescence, my birthday actually marked the passage of
significant life events, mainly the graduation from one level of schooling
to the next. Since my birthday fell during summer vacation, it always signified
to me that one chapter of my life had closed while another was about to begin.
That changed during my third (of seven) year of undergraduate study. At the
age of 20, I could not imagine my life going anywhere good, or really anywhere
at all. Four difficult years of college had brought me no closer to earning
a degree than two good years would have (due to a few school transfers, a change
of major, a slew of bad grades, and some personal difficulties). I had been
working at low-paying manual labor jobs. I had one friend who lived a thousand
miles away (2,500 km, I think) but none where I lived. I felt like I had no
real home, having moved too many times to grow roots. You know the uncertain
man James mentions
whose doubts cause him to be tossed about like foam on the waves? That was
me. At that point in my life, a birthday served only to remind
me that my previous year had been as stagnant as a land-locked, algae-filled
swamp, and that the next year held little promise of anything better.
I remember one particular birthday—my 23d, I think—when the future Mrs. Happy
took me to a Cajun restaurant for my birthday. At that time, it had not occurred
to me that she would make an amazing wife even though I already loved her ("as
a friend," I insisted even to myself) more than I had ever loved anyone. She
beamed for the entire evening, such was her joy for life and for me. The sight
of her almost sufficed to enliven my pathetic existence, and even though I
appreciated her efforts I was too caught up in my own perceived misery
to enjoy the attention. The cycle of yearly stagnation and birthday depression
repeated itself for five years.
If I remember correctly, 1997 (No. 25) was the first happy birthday of my
adult life. My Happy Best Friend had earned a Bachelor's degree, and I would
received mine in December of that year. We held hands on the day of her graduation,
sort of coming to a mutual realization of a love deeper than friendship. I
still had no ideas about a career or life after college, but I had grown enough
in faith to trust the future to God. Since then, I have made a conscious effort
to progress in life every year so that the arrival of my birthday would mark
a sort of milestone the way it did in my childhood, only better. I still experience
doldrums, of course, but one of the joys of my marriage is that I have someone
to help me out of the stagnant times. I also have the privilege of helping
her out of her own funks when they occur. It's true what the book of Ecclesiastes says:
"Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For
if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone
when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together,
they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?" I thank God for her. She
makes my birthdays happier than ever.
Monday, June 28, 2004
Marriage links for last week
I'd like to thank everyone who e-mailed me birthday wishes. The day was wonderful.
I was just going to skip the links for last week, but the blogosphere had some
marriage posts too good to ignore, so here they are:
Stacy reflects on her attitudes toward her husband and ponders what
it would mean to honor him in a Godly fashion.
Joe Missionary (another blogger I'll add to my sidebar when I get a chance
to fiddle with my template) wrote last week about a
husband's influence in a marriage. What he wrote went nicely with my
post on the subject, though we each wrote independently.
Jeremy at Parableman offers a stringent test for young couples to see whether
they're ready
to have children. Funny, but in many ways living with a small child seems
a lot like being a bachelor.
Rey sends up a prayer
for his son as he grows.
This has nothing to do with marriage, but with my other passion: dogs. It's
a story about how a
puppy was able to prevent a Canadian man from going on
a killing rampage with a car full of guns and ammo.
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Happy day
On Saturdays, I usually collect links from other blogs and from the news and publish them here under the title Marriage links for the week. Today, however, is my 32d birthday, so I'm taking the day off. If you know of a blog post or news story that celebrates marriage, please share it in the comments. Otherwise, have a great weekend.
His and Hers XV
His and Hers is a weekly discussion of a question or topic relating
to marriage.
On Friday,
my wife and I each write our thoughts on the week's topic. I invite other bloggers
to do the same with their spouses as an exercise in celebrating marriage. This
week's question is:
What is the worst experience you have ever had in a
fast food restaurant?
Curt's response
Earlier today, we visited a local restaurant that combines three stores into
one front: Togo's (sub sandwiches), Baskin Robbins (ice cream), and Dunkin
Donuts (donuts). As we arrived at the counter to order, a young man asked
us what we would like. Mrs.
Happy said she wanted a bowl of chicken and rice
soup. It was the soup of the day, and a sign directly over the counter
declared it the soup of the day, but the young man stared
at us in confusion, as if my wife were speaking an alien language. "Chicken
sandwich?" he asked. "No," she replied, clearly and firmly, "chicken and
rice soup." She
pointed to the sign that said "Soup of the Day: Chicken and Rice." That confused
him even more, and he rushed away from the register to speak to a woman in
the food preparation area (a good 30 feet or 12 meters away).
They conferred for several seconds, then he looked up in our direction and
shook his head, which we took to mean that they had no soup left. He made
no move to
return to the register, and seemed to expect us to move to the counter nearest
to him.
So we walked over to him. My wife told him that she would like a chicken
Caesar salad instead. The words "chicken Caesar salad" being part of the same
alien language as "chicken and rice soup," we received another stare of blankness
and vague panic from the man behind the counter. After Mrs. Happy repeated
her order twice more, the young man was able to find his manager and
determine that the chicken Caesar salad was indeed still available, though
he omitted the word "Caesar" every time he spoke of the "chicken salad" we
had ordered—this worried us a little since of the three salads offered by Togo's,
three were variations of chicken and salad. The manager assembled the
salad, then said, "Okay, well the problem is I only have
one
packet of
Caesar
dressing.
I have
some
Thousand
Island and
some Ranch…" I failed to see why that was a problem since one salad requires
only one packet of dressing, but Mrs. Happy prefers Ranch over Caesar anyway,
so that's what she got.
The young man took the salad and returned to the bank of cash registers, all
three of which at that time were occupied by customers and cashiers. He handed
the salad to one cashier, mumbled something in her ear while pointing at us,
and walked away. So we stood in line behind people who had arrived after us
and waited. When we finally stood face-to-face with
the cashier, she said, "Okay, that'll be $6.47." I replied, in a testier-than-usual
tone, "Can I have a sandwich?" This flustered her and incited the same
look of incomprehension and subtle fear that the young man had mastered so
well. She pressed a few random keys
on
her register, then asked, "What kind of sandwich would you like?" I had decided
on a sandwich called the Bruschetta Chicken Sandwich, which combined roasted
chicken, pesto sauce, marinated tomatoes, and melted provolone cheese on a
toasted bun, so I said, "I'll have the six-inch Chicken Bruschetta Sandwich."
"Okay. What size?" she asked.
I repeated, "Six-inch."
"A large?"
The posted menu did not include size labels such as small, medium, regular, large, x-large, biggie,
or lard-butt, so
I simply repeated, "Six-inch."
"What do you want on it?"
"What does it come with?"
"Uh…" This stammer was accompanied by the patented Togo's
stare®. I pointed to the posted menu that described the sandwich I had ordered.
"I want everything it says there," I said.
She nodded as if she finally understood and pressed some keys on the register.
She then said, "Okay, that comes to—" but my wife interrupted her tersely:
"We'd also like some drinks."
Again, we had caught her off guard. "Oh. You want drinks?" she asked
as she
fumbled with the register. Mrs. Happy said, "I'd like a small
iced caramel
swirl latte." The woman asked, "What size?" After a second's hesitation, Mrs.
Happy responded, "Small." Before she could total everything up, I said, "And
I'd like a small soda." "What kind?" she asked. It was my turn to be caught
off guard. Togo's is one of those places that has a self-serve fountain for
sodas, and I hadn't yet examined it to see the choices it offered. I repeated,
"Just a small soda." The woman insisted on clarification, "What kind?" I pointed
to the self-serve fountain and said, "Whatever kind is in that fountain over
there." The Togo's stare again flashed across her face. "Oh.
I'll just give you a cup then," she said, finding the perfect solution. I would
later discover that the soda fountain had no ice. I had to get someone behind
the counter to put some
ice in my cup for me.
Fast forward ten minutes. We got our food and we
got our drinks, and we paid nearly $18 for them. As I sat down at a table
and pulled my sandwich out of the carry-out bag (which they gave us
even though
we
were eating
at
the
tables),
I found
a twelve-inch roasted chicken sandwich. I looked at my receipt and found that
they had charged me $7.50 for the sandwich when I had ordered a $4.95 six-inch
sandwich. Fast forward another five minutes, during which I stood alone at
the cash registers being ignored by the workers. I finally got to talk to a
competent manager who refunded me three dollars and let me keep all 12 inches
of the
sandwich.
I noticed on the menu that adding $1.50 to a sandwich purchase entitled a
customer to a drink and a bag of chips. As I was walking away, I
saw on my receipt that the price of my small soda was
$1.62. I grabbed a bag of chips, ignored the prominently-placed and offensive-to-my-taste
tip jar, and never looked back.
Mrs. Happy's response
There was one time at Wendy's that I ordered a "cheeseburger, with lettuce
and cheese only" and received a slice of cheese and a leaf of lettuce between
two buns, with no hamburger patty. But I think the Togo's experience tops that.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Impact, effect, mark, imprint
Today I was planning to write about the importance of influence in marriage.
I was going to say that a husband should influence his wife by his good behavior.
I was going to provide some examples from my own marriage of how I influence
my wife. But trying to discern my positive influences on Mrs. Happy was quite
a humbling experience.
If influence means "to indirectly or intangibly affect
a person or course of events," then I'm hard pressed to pinpoint any influence
flowing from me to her. I know that I provide daily encouragement, expressions
of
love,
and
practical
help, but do my good habits inspire imitation in her life?
My bad habits certainly do. My good habits often incite a response, but is
that the same thing as influence? Maybe the wife naturally possesses more influence
than the husband in the relationship. Maybe she does, but shouldn't. Maybe
that's what got Adam and Eve all confused in the first place. Maybe modern
husbands should try to overcome Adam's influence on humanity.
I'm rambling. I do that when I'm confused. Any comments from older, wiser,
more seasoned husbands would be welcome.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
RLTB™
Real life trumped blogging so completely yesterday that I didn't even have
time to write an RLTB post.
Today, life is still holding a hand full of trump, but I managed to squeak in
a short blurb here. I'll take this opportunity to draw attention to a recently
discovered (by me, anyway) blogger in New York named Kevin
McCullough. He's
a columnist and radio talk show host who I linked on Saturday because of a
post he had written about the science of monogamy. He sent me an e-mail that
encouraged me quite a bit:
I was quite impressed with your blog. Thanks for giving me the plug on yours.
As a talk show host one of the things I emphasize all the time is the need
to strengthen marriage in our world today. I feel very good about
adding you as a blogroll bud to the KMC blog list.
I sign off my show in NYC everyday
by saying - "Guys - go home tonight,
kiss your wife, play with your kids, and be the 'Kind of man, Every man should
be!' - Because in doing so you go further to change the world than anyone else." I've
been signing off that way for four years - its a good reminder to myself
as well.
I'll be adding his site to the list of links on the left as soon as I get
some time to mess with my template. In the mean time, check out his site and
the others as well. They're all good reads.
Monday, June 21, 2004
More links
I missed some links on Saturday due to my performing research on two different
computers
and not e-mailing the results to myself. I don't want these to go unnoticed,
so here they are. Consider this sort of a Marriage Carnival.
Brutally Honest Rick tells his own love story on the occasion of his 23d
wedding anniversary.
Miss O'Hara laments the state of modern weddings and reflects on how many
of them cheapen
the meaning of the ceremony and possibly the meaning of marriage
itself.
Messy Christian relates the love story of a couple from two different countries
during World War II. As she says, "if there's one thing to be learnt, it is
that love can happen during the
most difficult times."
Kevin McCullough shares a news item regarding what could be a
scientific, biological cure for infidelity and promiscuity.
Another Kevin (Leman, this time), in a Christianity Today article, outlines
the concrete reasons a
good sex life is worth forethought as well as foreplay.
Saturday, June 19, 2004
Marriage links for the week
Finding herself facing an elegantly circular dilemma, Katy asks for advice
on giving advice to engaged couples.
Her commenters come through for her.
Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping offers the opinion that the producers
of the new movie The Stepford Wives sort of misses the point when
it comes to modern relationships. He later posts a reader's e-mail about
how his earlier post missed
the point as well.
Check out Rick's story about his wife's close
encounter with a dragonfly. A sense of humor about yourself is one of the
most important skills for coping with life.
Statedog Blake reminisces about his honeymoon as he, his wife, and his child
revisit the same area on a vacation.
According to an article at ABCnews.com, a friendship with a member of the
opposite sex can cross a moral line and become an emotional
affair. Link via Marriages
Restored.
A newspaper columnist reflects on the
nature of romance as he looks back on
two years of marriage.
Another columnist advises Tiger Woods to call
off his impending wedding. I
link to this because it's sort of funny and sort of sad and completely ignorant
and moronic.
In my earlier post about the joy that dogs bring to the world, I was remiss
in not pointing out that Messy Christian has a
blog dedicated entirely to her dog.
Friday, June 18, 2004
His and Hers XIV
His and Hers is a question or discussion topic relating to marriage that I
post every Tuesday or Wednesday (though I didn't do that this week). On Friday,
my wife and I each write our thoughts on the topic. I invite other bloggers
to do the same with their spouses as an exercise in celebrating marriage. This
week's question is:
What song reminds you of your spouse every time you
hear it?
Mrs. Happy's response
When Curt and I were just friends, we were best friends. He treated me with
so much kindness and affection that I grew to love him more deeply than I had
ever loved any other friend. I listened to a lot of Jewel back then, and when
I heard the song Near You Always, I realized that I was in love with
him. I knew, however, that he didn't feel the same way about me (hah) so I
had to
guard my emotions with every ounce of will I possessed. He didn't make it any
easier, though, because he never stopped treating me as though I were a lovely
and precious human being. Near You Always always made me think of Curt, and
I still do. The difference is that now I can completely omit the word don't from
the lyrics.
Near You Always
Please don't say I love you,
those words touch me much too deeply
and they make my core tremble
Don't think you realize the effect you have over me
Please don't look at me like that
It just makes me want to make you near me always
Please don't kiss me so sweet
it makes me crave a thousand kisses to follow
And please don't touch me like that
makes every other embrace seem pale and shallow
And please don't come so close
it just makes me want to make you near me always
Please don't bring me flowers
they only whisper the sweet things you'd say
Don't try to understand me
your hands already know too much anyway
It just makes me want to make you near me always
And when you look in my eyes
please know my heart is in your hands
It's nothing that I understand, but when in your arms
you have complete power over me
So be gentle if you please, 'cause
Your hands are in my hair, but my heart is in your teeth
And it makes me want to make you near me always
Your hands are in my hair, but my heart is in your teeth
And it makes me want to make you near me always
I want to be near you always
I want to be near you always
I want to be near you always
Curt's response
When I was in high school, I had a girlfriend. I dated her not because I loved
being around her but because I was lonely and I thought having a girlfriend
would solve that. It didn't. But I still behaved the way I thought a boyfriend
should behave, which meant that I often told her I loved her. It was a complete
lie, but I didn't realize it until after we broke up. Once I understood the
weight of those words, I vowed to myself never to tell any woman I loved her
until I was ready to marry her. It wasn't that difficult, because I never even
felt like saying that to any woman until I grew to love the woman who
would eventually become my wife. There was a period of a year or more when
I could have truthfully said to her, "I love you," and I desperately wanted
to say those words—at the time, I just wasn't ready to marry
her yet. I did tell her about my personal
vow, hoping that she would realize my feelings without hearing that verbal
expression of them, but I didn't tell her I loved her.
When I proposed, I serenaded my beloved with the song Do I Love You by
Cole Porter. During a musical interlude in the song, I told her I loved her
over and over again. I continued telling her throughout the evening. Since
then, not a day has passed without my saying, "I love you." Whenever I hear
that song, I think of her and of what a relief it was to finally give voice
to my passion.
Do I Love You?
Do I love you do I?
Doesn't one and one make two?
Do I love you do I?
Does July need a sky of blue?
Would I miss you, would I, if you ever should go away?
If the sun should desert the day, what would life be?
Will I leave you, never?
Could the ocean leave the shore?
Will I worship you forever?
Isn't heaven forevermore?
Do I love you, do I?
Oh my dear it's so easy to see,
Don't you know I do, don't I show you I do,
Just as you love me.
Will I leave you, never?
Could the ocean leave the shore?
Will I worship you forever?
Isn't heaven forevermore?
Do I love you, do I?
Oh my dear it's so easy to see,
Don't you know I do, don't I show you I do,
Just as you love me.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Canine joy
Mrs. Happy and I currently rent a house in New York. It has some advantages
over owning, but many disadvantages as well. Perhaps the most painful disadvantage
is that we're not allowed to have a dog. One of the first things we do when
we move into a house of our own some time in the future will be to invite a
dog (probably a boxer) to live with us. I bring this up not because it has
anything to do with marriage, but because I just got my computer fixed and
I'm feeling lazy enough to recycle quotes from some books that I've read as
well as a short essay I once wrote.
Jollyblogger recently
posted a
quote by G.K. Chesterton that I had never read,
but that makes me want to read more from Chesterton:
But there is something deeper in the matter than all that, only the hour is
late, and both the dog and I are too drowsy to interpret it. He lies in front
of me curled up before the fire, as so many dogs must have lain before so many
fires. I sit on one side of that hearth, as so many men must have sat by so
many hearths. Somehow this creature has completed my manhood; somehow, I cannot
explain why, a man ought to have a dog. A man ought to have six legs; those
other four legs are part of him. Our alliance is older than any of the passing
and priggish explanations that are offered of either of us; before evolution
was, we were. You can find it written in a book that I am a mere survival of
a squabble of anthropoid apes; and perhaps I am. I am sure I have no objection.
But my dog knows I am a man, and you will not find the meaning of that word
written in any book as clearly as it is written in his soul.
I don't know if Dean
Koontz is a Christian, but he is without a doubt spiritual.
And he loves dogs. Here's a quote from his novel One Door Away From Heaven:
Every world has dogs or their equivalent, creatures that thrive on companionship,
creatures that are of a high order of intelligence although not of the highest,
and that therefore are simple enough in their wants and needs to remain innocent.
The combination of the innocence and their intelligence allows them to serve
as a bridge between what is transient and what is eternal, between the finite
and the infinite.
...
For those who despair that their lives are without meaning and without purpose,
for those who dwell in a loneliness so terrible that it has withered their
hearts, for those who hate because they have no recognition of the destiny
they share with all humanity, for those who would squander their lives in self-pity
and in self-destruction because they have lost the saving wisdom with which
they were born, for all these and many more, hope waits in the dreams of a
dog, where the sacred nature of life may be clearly experienced without the
all but blinding filter of human need, desire, greed, envy, and endless fear.
And here, in dream woods and fields, along the shores of dream seas, with a
profound awareness of the playful Presence [of the Creator] abiding in all
things, Curtis is able to prove to Leilani what she has thus far only dared
to hope is true: that although her mother never loved her, there is One who
always has.
From an essay by Will Rogers in 1934:
I have often thought my friend O.O. McIntyre gave more space in his column
to his little dog than I do to the United States Senate. But it does show
that he knows human nature better than I do. He knows that everybody at heart
loves a dog, while I have to try and make converts to the Senate.
In London, five years ago, old Lord Dewar, a great humorist and character,
and the biggest whiskey maker in the world, gave [my] children a little white
dog, a Sealyham, saying: "If this dog knew how well bred he was, he wouldn't
speak to any of us."
We have petted him, complained on him, called him a nuisance, but when we
buried him yesterday, we couldn't think of a wrong thing he'd ever done.
His bravery was his undoing. He lost to a rattlesnake, but his face was towards
it.
From an essay by me in 2001:
I love dogs because they are without a doubt the
most lovable creatures inhabiting this world. Puppies live every day as though
it
were their
first,
rushing around,
playing at every hint of provocation, rejoicing in their lives as if they
remember how it was not to live. As they grow, so does their love. Older dogs
are mellower
than puppies, not out of fatigue or boredom but rather maturity. An older
dog understands the deeper value of life, especially the life of a loved one.
An
older dog has a better understanding of the complexity of human emotions
than many humans do. The very presence of a dog can drain negative feelings
out
of anyone, and their service to mankind has been well documented in literature,
TV, film, and oral tradition. Every single dog that I've had for more than
two
weeks left an indelible imprint on my life.
I think that people who don't like
dogs fall into two broad categories: people who like cats better, and people
who don't like animals at all. I can only pity
people who don't like animals. They deprive themselves of the unspeakable
joy of communing with other of God's creatures. Of people who prefer cats
over
dogs, I hold the opinion that <deleting some nasty comments about
cats and the people who like them more than dogs—I've mellowed a little
in the last three years - Curt>.
Any
other animal, with the possible exception of the horse, requires little
in the way of maintenance, affection, time, and love. And any other animal,
again
excepting the horse and maybe the dolphin, provides nothing like what a
dog
does in the way of loyalty, companionship, and unabashed fun. <deleting
a few more nasty comments> People who love dogs
understand that the rewards of relationship are far greater than the conveniences
of coexistence.
I think E.B. White also had some wonderful things to say about dogs, and I
know James Thurber did, as well as Fred
First, but I've already exceeded—for
the first time, I think—my self-imposed limit of 1,000 words
per post.
I'll have to save those for another time.
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
technology is wonderful
We are experiencing technical difficulties. I may not be posting anything for a few days until I get a computer issue resolved.
Monday, June 14, 2004
Marriage advice
Yesterday
I was cleaning out one of our kitchen drawers and I found what appeared to
be a collection of recipes bound together by a single metal ring. I looked
at them
more closely and saw that the first recipe card proclaimed "Recipe for A Wonderful
Christ-Centered Marriage! We All Love You!" It was a party gift from one of
Mrs. Happy's bridal showers back in March of 1998. All the ladies at the shower
wrote marriage
advice on recipe cards and gave them to her at the end of the shower. Here
are some of the nuggets of wisdom we received early on. (These were all hand-written.
I have tried to preserve all the capitalizations, spellings, and notations
as much as possible.)
Make the big effort to "make memories." Right now it will al
be special, joyful times. In a year or two…it may take more effort~but it
will all be worth it. Have Candlelight dinners once a week! (it makes
it all taste better AND do this once the kids come too :) Surprise Kurt
with notes of love in his lunch box - socks drawer… Ask His mom how
to fix his favorite meal & dessert…then do it! Make every day Precious!
Never go to bed angry with one another.
<this card consisted of a picture of a gingerbread man with the various
body parts labeled>
• eyes to
always look for the best in each other
• ears to always listen
• arms to give a hug every morning & every evening
• an extra large heart to always forgive and always big enough for growing
love
• feet with no heels, so you can never turn & run away, but always move forward
together
Always remember to keep God first, then each other. Don't let all the business
of life start to become more of a priority than each other. When children
come along remember they do not come before the husband or the wife. Remember:
God - first
family - second
everything else - third
One word for your stable marriage: forgiveness. It worked for us!
1) Have plenty of laughs. Make lots of jokes especially when circumstances
aren't perfect. 2) Cook in large quantity and freeze the leftovers.
I can say for sure that this is all good, practical advice. Still, we didn't
really listen to it or understand it at the time. Having been through six years
of marriage and learning this all from experience, it makes a lot more sense
now.
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Marriage links for the week
I learned a new word this week, thanks to Jollyblogger. Uxoriousness:
excessively submissive or devoted to one's wife; foolishly fond of or submissive
to your wife.
He explains the word
and offers
some thoughts on it as it applies to Adam, Abraham, and all men who follow
God.
Jollyblogger also expounds on the differences
between guys and men this
week. He offers a short self-evaluation to discover whether you're a guy or
a man based on male role models and women you find attractive. I came down
solidly on the man side in the comparison to other men, but solidly
on the guy side in the women I find attractive. I think the latter
has more to do with the women's age than with my own level of maturity, though.
Lloyd Nichols ponders some issues surrounding sex,
marriage, and lust (link
via Messy Christian).
IreneQ and her commenters explore the importance of both chemistry
and compatibility in a romantic relationship.
According to King of Fools, one Texas politician has his own chapter
of supporters living with him in his house.
Ronald Reagan left behind a legacy of love for his family, and especially
his wife:
In the written and photographed record of their years together, running
for governor, walking in inaugural parades, strolling Camp David, after the
attempt on his life and her mastectomy, the Reagans always are holding hands,
hers slipped into his. Sometimes, she wanted to hold him with both hands,
and she reached around with her free hand to clasp his wrist as well.
One couple kisses for the first time on
their wedding day.
I received another Where I'm From poem this week. Check out Where
Deb's From.
Friday, June 11, 2004
His and Hers XIII
His and Hers is a question or discussion topic relating to marriage
that I post every Tuesday or Wednesday (though I didn't do
that this week). On Friday, my wife and I each write our thoughts on the topic.
I invite
other
bloggers to do the same with their spouses as an exercise in celebrating marriage.
This week's question is:
What is your favorite expression of physical affection from
your spouse?
Mrs. Happy's response
One of the things that made me fall in love with Curt was the way he hugs
me with abandon, like I'm the only person in the world. I still love the hugs,
but I think my favorite thing now is when he caresses my face.
Curt's response
When my wife lovingly strokes the back of my head and neck, I think that physical
act makes me feel more loved than any other.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
My scary week, epilogue
I rarely saw the man who shared my hospital room due to the privacy curtain
drawn between us, and I never spoke to him. Everything I learned about him
came from
what I heard of the conversations coming from his side of the room. At first,
I thought he was a mean, senile old man
because he yelled a lot and didn't always make sense. Later, I learned that
he could not hear very well and had probably suffered some kind of stroke.
He had
been in the hospital for a couple of days, and during my time there he began
to slowly regain his senses. During my first night there he shouted angrily
at anyone who came into the room, operating on the (not unfounded) assumption
that
anyone standing at his bedside wanted to stab him with a needle.
He spoke more kindly once the sun rose, especially after his wife arrived to
keep him company.
The first time that his wife visited during my stay, she spoke lovingly to
him and he reciprocated. She was relieved that he finally recognized her, and
she filled him in on all that had happened. At one point he told her, "I must
have been close to death, but honey, I love you
so much
you
make
me
want
to
live." He made a point of telling every nurse, doctor, orderly, lab tech, and
dietary worker he saw that he loved his wife and that they had been married
for 65 years. He also bragged about his children, one of whom owned a local
restaurant and brought him French onion soup for lunch one day.
I can't testify with any accuracy regarding the state of that 65-year-old
marriage, but the love between them was obvious in the way the two spoke to
each other. The love of their daughter was also obvious during her visit. My
wife and I have been married for six years. While we were sitting in my hospital
bed doing a crossword puzzle together, I couldn't help but wonder what we would
be like after doing this for another sixty years. I hope and pray that our
love is as obvious at that time as it is in the marriage of my elderly stroke
victim roommate.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
My scary week, Part 3
Read Part
1 and Part
2 before going any further.
At some point during the morning, my doctor asked me about tests that my New
York cardiologist had run. She wanted to see the results of the echocardiogram Dr.
NY had administered, but I didn't have his phone number. So I told her his
name and his city, naively thinking that the hospital would be able to
get ahold of, or at least confirm the existence of, any doctor in the country.
Throughout the morning, a nurse or an aide would ask me to clarify Dr. NY's
name and city
because they
couldn't
find him or even any evidence of him. After several hours of this confusion,
my wife called her brother in Austin and asked him to see if he could find
the doctor on the Web. He found Dr. NY's number while they were on the phone.
That shook my confidence in the hospital a little. I gave my nurse the phone
number, but they still couldn't get ahold of the doctor.
A cardiologist in the hospital came to visit me at one point while my wife
was there. He told me that he had gone over all the test results and that everything
looked normal. He said I probably had mitral valve prolapse, a heart condition
that can allow a little blood to flow back into the the left atrium once it
has passed into the left ventricle. It can cause symptoms similar to mine
and is fairly common. He said he would know for sure once he was able to look
at my echocardiogram from New York. He also told me that it is nothing to worry
about, that it is relatively harmless, and that it's better to live with the
symptoms than with the side effects of the medication that would alleviate
the discomfort. Immediately after he left the room, my wife looked at me quizzically
and asked, "Did he just tell you to suck it up?" I think he did.
Anyway, the NY echocardiogram seemed to be a long time coming, so they finally
just administered one themselves. Shortly thereafter, the cardiologist came
back to see me and reported that the test displayed no signs of MVP. However
much my irregular heart beats disturbed me, they appeared to be benign in nature.
The tightness in my chest could have been caused by any of a number of non-cardiac-related
events. He said he would recommend to my attending physician that I be released.
He didn't say this in so many words, but this is how I interpreted his statements:
"You have a strong, healthy, well-formed heart. You don't smoke, drink, or
suffer from stress. Your cholesterol level is fine, as is your blood pressure.
You have no family history of heart disease. Exertion does away with your irregular
heartbeats rather than exacerbating them. All the tests we've run have
come back negative.
And you're
only 31 years old. We can't
figure
out
what's
wrong
with you, so it's probably nothing serious. Suck it up." Both my regular doctor
and my cardiologist echoed those thoughts when I later followed up with them
in New York.
So they let me go. The nurse who discharged me assured me I had done the right
thing in coming to the hospital. A lot of people with my symptoms ignore them
and end up dying as a result. She scolded me a little, however, for coming
to the hospital in a car rather than an ambulance. An ambulance has oxygen
tanks, medicines, medical tools, and people trained to use them whereas a grandparent's
car usually has none of those. Also, people who arrive in an ambulance are
usually fast-tracked and not shunted off to the waiting room for seven hours.
Now I know.
I thought that I would feel silly if I went to the hospital only to find out
there's nothing wrong with me. Instead, I feel relieved. That pressure lasted
about a week, and I would have been an absolute nervous wreck after half a
day had I not been under the care of doctors. As it is, my mind is now at ease
for the most part. I would have preferred to have a more definitive diagnosis,
but medicine is an inexact science. Whatever the case, I'll be around for a
good while longer, God willing.
The end…
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
My scary week, Part 2
If you have not read Part 1, read
it now.
In the emergency room, I described my symptoms to a triage nurse. She took
down my information and sent me to the waiting room, where I waited a few minutes
before another nurse called my name. Allowing my wife to tag along, he took
me to a room where he asked me exactly the same questions as the triage nurse.
He then administered an EKG,
drew some blood for a test, and sent me to the X-ray lab for a chest X-ray.
After that, we sat in the ER waiting room for six hours. Periodically, a nurse
would emerge to evaluate my pulse and blood pressure and quiz me about my level
of pain/discomfort. To pass the time, the family and I played Word
Mastermind. It took my mind off the situation and alleviated my feeling
of impending doom, but I think our fun and laughter may have annoyed the sick
and injured people filling up the other seats in the room.
Finally, a little after midnight, a nurse approached and said they were going
to admit me into the hospital as soon as they could get a bed ready. They gave
me a temporary bed in the emergency room where I could have privacy (essential
once they put me into a hospital gown). A nurse gave me an aspirin,
a couple of nitroglycerin
tablets, a nitroglycerin
skin patch, and a shot of something (can't remember what) in my stomach.
She also gave me an IV feed of saline (I think) to counteract the drop in blood
pressure caused by the nitroglycerin, put an oxygen tube in my nose, and hooked
me up to a machine that monitored my blood pressure and my heartbeat, a machine
that squeezed my arm at regular intervals and allowed me to hear as well as
feel the PVCs. I waited in that rolling bed for more than an hour before they
took me to a real room. Mrs. Happy stayed with me and kept me occupied as well
as she could.
The next few hours are too tedious to describe. Lots of talking to nurses
and a doctor, lots of blood-drawing and blood pressure-taking, and lots of
the same questions I had been hearing since the moment I walked through the
door. Once I was settled in my room, they gave me a portable heart monitor
and a bed pan, one of which I found impossible to use (hint: it wasn't the
heart monitor). Eventually, they told my wife that she had to leave since I
was in a semiprivate room with another male patient. She reluctantly left and
returned to our hotel to get some sleep. Upon her leaving, I immediately drifted
into a state of semi-consciousness, unable to fall completely asleep but too
exhausted to stay fully awake. The night was broken up by periodic visits from
nurses and aids, people yelling at my hard-of-hearing roommate, and a concerned
phone call from a distressed Mrs. Happy.
Morning came and brought with it a combination of boredom and anxiety
the likes of which I had never known. In the past, I have thought that being
in the hospital would be kind of fun, with no responsibilities and all kinds
of people paying close attention to you. I no longer think that. The nitro
pills and patch in the emergency room had alleviated the tightness in my chest,
but it had returned in the night and showed no signs of going away. The PVCs
continued unabated. The oxygen had dried out the inside of my nose, leaving
it feeling uncomfortably raw and a little bloody. The array of diversions available
to me reminded me of the kind of joke I used to perform with my childhood friend
Chris:
Me: I was in the hospital and I had nothing to read.
Chris: That's bad.
Me: I asked a nurse and she brought me a magazine.
Chris: That's good.
Me: It was a fashion magazine.
Chris: That's bad.
Me: She also brought me a Wall Street Journal.
Chris: That's good.
Me: I couldn't concentrate well enough to read.
Chris: That's bad.
Me: There was a TV in the room.
Chris: That's good.
Me: My roommate had the remote.
Chris: That's bad.
Me: He watched some interesting shows.
Chris: That's good.
Me: He also watched five episodes of Full House and
two episodes of a show that resembled Teletubbies
on acid.
Chris: That's bad.
Me: He couldn't hear very well, so he had to keep the
volume really loud.
Chris: That's good. No, wait. That's bad.
Me: The TV's sound came through speakers in the bed rather
than from the TV.
Chris: That's good.
Me: The speakers in my bed didn't work.
Chris: Crap.
Fortunately, the food was good(!) and nearly all the hospital employees were
nice. The air conditioner was a north pole/equatorial jungle proposition. My
attending physician spoke to me at length about how I was feeling and what
tests she wanted to run. She said that the X-ray and the blood tests showed
no abnormalities, and that the EKG had recorded my PVCs. Throughout the day,
every three hours, people came up from the hospital's lab to extract blood
from my arm. Some time in the mid-morning, they wheeled me to another floor
where a woman performed a sonogram on my legs to look for blood clots. She
found none.
My wife showed up around lunch time with her parents, two of her grandparents,
and her brother. We passed the time amicably for about an hour, then the family
went home, leaving Mrs. Happy with me. Our time together was as delightful
as it could be under the circumstances. We sat in the bed together doing crossword
puzzles. We strolled around the hospital floor and made some phone calls to
update family and friends. We talked and laughed and kissed when no one was
looking. Perfectly lovely.
To be continued…
Monday, June 07, 2004
My scary week, Part 1
Imagine you're riding in a car being driven by your friend Frank. Now imagine
that a drunk driver broadsides your car on Frank's side so that he's knocked
unconscious. An ambulance arrives and takes everyone to the hospital. You walk
away with a few bruises. Frank is okay except that he might be a little loopy
for a day or two. When you call Frank's wife to let her know what happened, it's
a bad idea to say, "Kelli, we were broadsided by a drunk driver. The doctors
have Frank
under observation right now." It's better and more sensitive to say, "Kelli,
everything's okay. Frank and I are both fine, but we were in a car accident.
Frank got knocked on the head, so he's a little out of it, but the doctors say
he's going to be perfectly all right." The first statement allows Kelli's worst
fears to
run wild in her imagination and devastate her emotionally. The second puts the
accident in perspective so that Kelli knows right up front that nothing is seriously
wrong.
In that spirit, I should say right up front that everything's okay. I'm fine,
but last week I went to the emergency room with symptoms of a heart attack.
My wife and I had been planning a trip to Arizona for a mini-family reunion.
We were set to leave on Saturday, May 29, and return on Wednesday, June 2.
We had one small problem, though, in that I have been experiencing irregular
heartbeats with increasing frequency for the past couple of months. Thursday
night, the premature
ventricular contractions (as I later learned to call the
irregular beats, or PVCs) were stronger and more frequent than any I had ever
experienced. When a PVC occurs, I feel as though my heart
stops beating for a split second then resumes, sort of like a car engine
missing on a cylinder or two. Thursday night, I developed a fear that my
heart would stop and not be able to start again. The fear wasn't bad enough
for me to call an ambulance, but it did prompt me to visit my cardiologist's
office on Friday.
The cardiologist's assistant said they would order a device that would record
my heartbeats so that they could see the phenomenon and evaluate it. She also
told me I should be okay traveling to Arizona. So Mrs. Happy and I packed
up and got on the plane Saturday morning. I still harbored some fear about
my heart stopping. I also worried that my troubles might stem from a blood
clot, though I know absolutely nothing about blood clots except that they
can kill and are especially deadly
on airplanes for some reason.
I reached Phoenix alive, but the PVCs continued to grow in number and intensity.
I fell asleep with them Sunday night and woke up with them early Monday morning.
They stayed with me throughout the day, sometimes pounding my chest with such
violence that they took my breath away or forced me to cough. My wife made
a point of sticking close to me when she could and, when she couldn't, making
sure I was never alone. Around four o'clock, I began feeling a squeezing sensation
in the middle of my chest. I found a computer and looked up a
Web site that
listed the symptoms of a heart attack. The tightness in the chest was right
at the top of the list:
- Uncomfortable pressure, fullness, squeezing or pain in the center of the
chest lasting more than a few minutes.
- Pain spreading to the shoulders, neck or arms.
The pain may be mild to intense. It may feel like pressure, tightness,
burning, or heavy weight. It may be located
in the chest, upper abdomen, neck, jaw, or inside the arms or shoulders.
- Chest
discomfort with lightheadedness, fainting, sweating, nausea or shortness
of breath.
- Anxiety, nervousness and/or cold, sweaty skin.
- Paleness or pallor.
- Increased or irregular heart rate.
- Feeling of impending doom.
I felt all of these symptoms to one degree or another, though even at the
time I could attribute most of them to panic and imagination (pressure in my
neck, nervousness, impending doom, etc.) or my natural state (paleness or pallor).
But the tightness was unmistakably real, and it terrified me. Though the tightness
was not painful—just very uncomfortable—the Web site stated that
it is "vital to seek medical attention quickly if
you feel the sort of pressing pain or heaviness described above. There is a
90
percent
probability
that pain of this type is angina. And even if it goes away, the artery blockages
that caused it are still there and will grow progressively worse.
Ignoring this sort of pain because it is not unbearable or because it goes
away is the worst thing you can do. It is the only warning you are likely to
get of a potentially lethal condition."
I made my fears known to the
family as calmly as I could, and everyone agreed that
I
should
get to the nearest emergency room as quickly as possible. So two grandparents,
two parents, my wife, and I all piled into a five-passenger sedan and drove
to what turned out to be one of the top ten heart hospitals in the country.
To be continued…
Saturday, June 05, 2004
Marriage links for the week
Rebecca writes about her casual
attitude toward wedding anniversaries has not changed in her husband's
absence.
Thanks to Rey for the link.
Marla is proud
of her husband.
One of the strongest proponents of marriage in the country, apparently and
ironically, is a Catholic
priest who teaches a class called "Christian Marriage"
at the University
of Dayton. His class is so popular, and his impact is so profound, that university
alumni have set up a scholarship fund in his honor. He says the keys to a successful
marriage are "knowing who you are, knowing your spouse and maintaining a focus,
passion and dedication to each other."
I love dogs, and Fred's young lab looks like a delight for anyone who doesn't
have to live with him. There are a couple of pictures at Fragments From Floyd
of the pup chasing
a butterfly and leaping
for joy in a picturesque creek.
Friday, June 04, 2004
His and Hers XII
Note: I posted this last week then left town. There was some sort
of technical glitch. The post disappeared, and I was unable to do anything
about it (and thanks, Rey, for posting in my absence). I'm
reposting it again for this week.
His and Hers is a question or discussion topic relating to marriage
that I post every Tuesday or Wednesday (though I didn't get a chance to do
that this week). On Friday, my wife and I each write our thoughts on the topic.
I invite
other
bloggers to do the same with their spouses as an exercise in celebrating marriage.
This week's question is:
Merriam-Webster Online recently conducted a survey of their
readers' favorite words. What are your top ten favorite words, in no particular
order and for any reason at all?
Mrs. Happy's response
philanthropic
mandala!
havoc
ensues
globular
heck
heinous
kumquat
excellent (Mr. Burns-style)
entrepreneur
Curt's response
yonder
howdy
wherefore
happy
flappy
hijinks
inspire
askance
eschew
ethereal
Thursday, June 03, 2004
RLTB™
Real life is holding the Ace, King, Queen, and Jack of Spades right now, compared to the 10 of Diamonds that blogging possesses, which means that real life is trumping the heck out of blogging. I will probably write more about it when I get a chance (maybe Monday), but for now I'll just have to claim my RLTB rights.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
How long has it been?
by Steve Switzer
18 years, 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 12 hours and 34 minutes…but who's
counting?
Many a man (including yours truly) has found himself at an uncomfortable
loss for words when confronted with this familiar question, "So, how long
have you been married?" The crowd grows silent, the sound of crickets
are
heard, all eyes are suddenly turned on him (especially the glaring eyes of
his beloved). After a brief pause that seems to last forever, he responds
cleverly with, "Not nearly long enough!" or "It seems like it
was only
yesterday!" — Of course, the other infamous question involves the actual
date of the blessed event, but that's another story.
It is somewhat of a mystery
why many men can remember the box scores of
their favorite sports team since childhood, but they seem to draw a blank when
it comes to remembering how long they've been married to "the woman of
their dreams." But even if the date does escape me, I know that I could
never forget the moments we've shared in "18 plus" years of marriage.
So far, I
can remember times when we laughed so hard that it hurt. There have been
times when I, the strong he-man, cried uncontrollably in the loving arms of
my best friend. When I stop and think about it, there has literally never
been a dull moment in our marriage journey, and we're really just getting
started.
I am reminded of the words of the Psalmist, David, "Teach us to
number our
days that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Psalm 90:12) I think he is
basically saying, "life is brief, and full of wonderful opportunities,
so
cherish each and every day you have." I also see this applying to the
part
of my life that I am sharing with my special friend and wife, Shelley. I
believe that the better part of the last nineteen years of my life has been "a
Gift within a Gift." So, every once in a while I stop and "number
the
days—cherish the days" of my marriage. Just as in life there are
good days and bad days, in this relationship, there are definitely ups and
downs.
But every time I honestly consider the precious gift from God in the person
of my wife, I gain a bit more wisdom. I have come to realize and agree
completely with the words of Solomon in Proverbs, "He who finds a wife
finds
what is good and receives favor from the Lord." (Proverbs 18:22)
It is hard to believe sometimes that we've been married almost nineteen
years. It really does seem just like yesterday that it all began. While at
the same time, I feel like we've been married forever. It is hard to
remember a time without her. I cherish the days, each and every one of
them, as the gift that they are from God.
So, who's counting the days? I guess I am. There have been 6,720
of them, and I'm still counting—numbering—cherishing each and every one
of them.
By
the way, the date was December 28th. Honestly, some things you just
never forget!
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
An 18-year-old gift from God
by Shelley Switzer
When my friend Curt asked if I could write something
for his Web site about being
married for 18 years I was thrilled. We just celebrated 18 years of marriage.
We also just celebrated our son's 13th birthday, so now we have 2 teenagers
in our
home and we enjoy them both very much. We also have a 6-year-old who keeps
us young. (Or is she making us old? That's a whole other article!)
I
sat down to write and now I don't know what to say. Let's see.
It's been the
best of times, it's been the worst of times. No, no. Let me try again.
It seems
like yesterday we met for the first time and then it seems like we have been
together FOREVER! There have been
days when he is just a few minutes late and I think my heart will burst inside
if
I don't see him soon! There have also been times when I can understand why
women run over their husbands with a car. (Don't worry. The way I drive he
could lie down in front of my tires and I'd still miss him.) I have to say
that in 18 years we have had a LOT more good days than bad. So I sit here
asking myself: How did that happen? Why
do I smile even now thinking about the day all our kids are grown and gone
and it's just the two of us? I can only think of a few reasons:
- From
day one we always make sure the other knows we love them. In
18 years there has never been a day that Steve left for work and didn't kiss
me
good-bye. Even when I'd been up all night with a crying baby and I was
finally sleeping, he'd kiss me good-bye. (I didn't always appreciate
it then, but I do now. Sorry honey! I truly appreciate it now!)
We
also say "I love you" every day. We decided early in our marriage that if
the unthinkable happened and one of us died in our sleep or died coming home
from
work, the other one would not spend days or years regretting they never said,
"I love you." So he knows and I know. We are loved!
- We keep God
in the center of our marriage and our lives. I had to learn
this one. Steve can't meet all my needs, but God can. What a load of
pressure off my husband when I finally figured that out!
When we did have young children and it was all I could do to function, Steve
would share what he had been learning in his devotion time. There were
days I resented him for this. I wanted to have my own quiet time. But
every time it got quiet, I fell asleep! Learning from what Steve was
learning was not as good as getting it for myself, but in those trying times
it kept me going and encouraged me to get back to my quiet times.
Just a few
years ago, God revealed to me to pray for passion in our marriage. I'll
admit I fought it for a while. A good marriage should have that, why
pray for it? When I finally swallowed my pride and realized Jesus said
in the book of John "Without me you can do NOTHING," I started
praying for passion and for God to show me how to love Steve more. What
a difference it has made in our marriage!
- We make time for each other. This
has been the hardest lesson to learn. Especially
when the kids started coming. We had heard couples need date nights. Let
me emphasize it again. You need date nights. Even if it's not out to eat.
Just send the kids out and stay home together. Make time
for each other. When you do get that time TALK, TALK, TALK. Talk
about your hopes, dreams, discouragements, frustrations. Everything. Even
if you are not a talker, learn to talk. You need that time to stay in touch
with each other.
- Last, but not least, keep learning about marriage and each
other. We
read books or take classes to learn everything from ant farming to zoo keeping,
but we rarely read books on how to keep a marriage going. Make it a
point to read one Christian book on marriage a year or go to a couple's
retreat.
You never know when you'll find out after all these years that your spouse
LOVES Captain Crunch!
(Inside
joke.)
So that's basically it. Why after 18 years, I love Steve
more than the day we married. Why if he doesn't get home soon, I'm
going to eat his sandwich and he'll forgive me. Why I can't wait to
see what the next 18 has in store for us. Why I KNOW, marriage is a
gift from God!
