When Andrea & I were out yesterday, we went to dinner to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary (which is today). The place we wanted to go was the place we had dinner 20 years ago on V Day. Then it was a Chinese restaurant and now it’s a pub. We opted to go to another Chinese restaurant instead.

It was during the dinner 20 years ago that Andrea and I first discussed how we felt about marriage. In remembering 20 years ago, I realized that my feelings on the subject of what marriage is (and is not) about have changed very little from what they were then. Having paid some attention to society at large, it’s safe to say that my feelings are not universal.

There are two things that our society places a great deal of emphasis on that I feel are largely inconsequential to marriage:

• a state registered marriage (marriage certificate) – depending on the jurisdiction, there may be value in one of these to the couple such as enabling adoption. Also, property ownership may automatically be transfered in the event of death of one half of the couple. In other words, signing a marriage certificate has value in the legal and judicial system. I don’t have any objection to state marriages. That’s not my point. My point is that once it’s signed, the only place a marriage certificate has any material value is in the legal & judicial system. It does not contribute to the day to day work of being a couple.
• a wedding ceremony – In saying that I am not knocking weddings. If a couple want to have a wedding and celebrate their marriage with their family & friends then that’s fantastic. But wedding ceremonies don’t make marriages. Marriage is something you do and are a part of every day. It isn’t a one time thing.

I’ve been to quite a few wedding over the years and have heard alot of variations in vows. What seems to be common among them are 3 words or actions: love, honor & cherish. The vows are about committing to doing those things on an ongoing basis. Doing those on an ongoing basis *is* what I believe is important in marriage. So, I’d like to talk about them in reverse order

• Cherish – IMO, most marriages start with this and the fact that the couple cherishes one another is the reason they have decided to get married. I look at cherishing as valuing them as a person, wanting their companionship, liking their character & personality, etc. The thing is, that the divorce rate in our society show that cherishing your spouse is in itself insufficient in creating a lasting marriage.
• Honor – I’m not quite sure what other people take this to mean. I think it means having respect for Andrea’s role as my wife and it is my responsibility to uphold her. The way I carry this out is by doing 2 things. First, I try to be a good husband, to appreciate the things she does for me, to value her opinion, and to be reasonable, caring, campassionate, thoughtful and considerate toward her. Second, I try to treat Andrea like she has been and will continue to be a good wife both when I’m around her and when I’m away from her. An example from the other side of marriage, if I have a bone to pick with I don’t deal with it at the local bar over a drink or at a buddy’s house. I talk to her about it and we work something out (which good spouses will do). I’ve never complained about her to anyone. Doing so would dishonor her. If she has a bone to pick with me, I want her to tell me about it and I want to work out something that is acceptable to both of us.
• Love – As an adult, I’ve always taken this to mean charity in the Biblical sense: being longsuffering (enduring, patient and forgiving) & kind, thinking of others, having temperance and not being selfish or self-serving. In more practical terms it means putting the other person first.

Whether or not everyone sees marriage as I’ve described, every marriage that I have admired over the years has a good dose of those qualities.

I waited for Andrea to write her post first.

We always called them Little Nanny and Little Grampy. There’s a story that goes with why they had those names but it’s not particularly important here. From the time Andrea & I got married, these folks always treated me like I was another one of their grandchildren. There was never any distinction and that’s just the way it was.

Last year, my birthday card and gift from Little Grampy arrived in the usual few days early. And then we realized that Andrea hadn’t received one (her birthday is a couple weeks before mine). We knew he was declining, but that made it more real. At the same time, that missed birthday card ensured that Andrea & I will always remember that he was my Grampy too. Andrea’s post describes his life long interest in technology, so until the last few years it wasn’t unusual during a visit for Grampy to spend more time with me than he did with Andrea and the kids.

One little story that I’d like to pass on is that at his 90th birthday party, someone asked Grampy what was the best thing about turning 90. He responded without missing a beat, “I don’t have to apologize anymore.” That didn’t mean that he started treating people differently. He knew that people do overlook all sorts of incidental things that elderly people do. And on turning 90, he didn’t have to worry about calling someone by the wrong name and that sort of thing.

Yes, I know, it’s January 10th :/ Most of the blogs I read that had an end of year post managed to have it up by the end of New Year’s Day. I finally kicked myself in the pants and decided to write a post here *before* I started working on other stuff. In my defense, Andrea & I have been re-distributing our respective workloads. To that end, I have been more actively involved in writing on one of our other blogs.

2008 started out a bit mixed. In the first 3 months, I had a couple of trips to the hospital, we closed on our house in Miramichi, my brother was diagnosed with and had emergency surgery for brain tumors, and my Grandmother passed away.

In my post a year ago, I said I was looking forward to 2008. Overall, it was a much better year than 2007.

It definitely ended on a solid note because I was working at home for almost all of the last 4 months of the year. Andrea & I have had quite a few people say to one or the other of us that they couldn’t imagine working with their spouse. Oddly enough, overall Andrea & I get along much better when we are together most of the time than we do when we are working apart. What I find a bit strange about that is that it isn’t a result of us having less disagreements. Instead, it might be that of the amount of time we spend together, much less of it is spent on disagreements.

In any event, I am looking forward to 2009 and spending most of my days working, playing, learning and relaxing with my family.

Just wanted to leave you a quick note wishing you all the best over Christmas and into the New Year. Andrea and I are looking forward to a few days where the computer usage will be minimal

Last night I was reading a Letter from Kamp Krusty (HT: Carrie). The post prompted me to try to remember what was the most expensive Christmas gift I had ever bought. I didn’t think of it until today. 10 years ago, I bought Andrea our current dining room set. Except for the pellet stoves, it is probably the most expensive thing we have in our house. At the time we were doing very well financially and I paid cash for it.

My main comment on the letter from Krusty is, “well said”. Excepting the dining set above, we’ve never been heavy spenders at Christmas. Starting at age 2, we took the children out and let them pick out gifts for each other and us.

A funny example of that was when Sarah was 3 or 4 she wanted to get Mom a potato masher. Mom had broken hers a few months before and had been using a whisk to mash potatoes instead. When I had Sarah at the kitchen utensils section, I gently pointed out a potato masher. However, she grabbed a whisk which she insisted was a potato masher. Now most people I know would have corrected her, but I didn’t. What was important in Sarah giving a gift was Sarah choosing the gift. I was the person paying for it. The only part of it that was a gift from her was the choice of what to buy. A very very short explanation when the gift was opened resulted in Mom giving Sarah the biggest hug. A real potato masher was purchased in the next grocery run.

What has been the focus of gift giving on our house throughout the years has been choosing good gifts. (Our children learned the skill by choosing gifts, not by watching others choose them and not by looking at the price tag.) Not good in the sense of how much they cost or how popular they are. But in the sense of how the receiver will feel when they open it. A good gift is priceless. Good gifts require paying attention to what the person you are getting it for likes and does not like. The best gifts are rarely expensive.

Based on a few offhand comments, Andrea is planning a post in which she will take a walk memory lane I’m not going to duplicate that here. Today is the 20th anniversary of Andrea & I starting down the road that lead to today.

One of the things we do sometimes is sing together. She’s a much better singer than I am but we have done a couple public performances together. One if the duets we like to sing just for our own enjoyment is this one:

Take a minute or two if you can spare it and sing along

Unforgettable, that’s what you are

Unforgettable, thought near or far

Like a song of love that climbs to me

is the thought of you that stings to me

Never before

has someone been more

Unforgettable, in every way

And forever more, that’s how you stay

That’s why, darling, it’s incredible

that someone so unforgettable

thinks that I am

unforgettable too

(piano & sax)

No, never before

has someone been more

Unforgettable, in every way

And forever more, that’s how you stay

That’s why, darling, it’s incredible

that someone so unforgettable

thinks that I am

unforgettable too

Today, the folks at the post office told Andrea that spring arrived at 1:30 this morning. I awoke to the sound of ice pellets hitting the window. When I stepped out of the carport this morning, I saw the groundhog that has taken up residence near our house. We had several hours of freezing rain through the day which turned to snow about the time I was shutting my cubicle down for the weekend. The accumulation in the driveway looks to be about 8 inches.

Tonight, my brother called. He lives in our first house which is about 3 hours’ drive south of here. He has no snow. He had rain and freezing rain today. We have an 8 foot bank in front of our house. It is officially spring, none the less.

My mother’s mother died in childbirth when my mother was 4. Her father remarried and my mother has 7 half brothers and sisters. About 5 1/2 years before I was born, my mother’s father died of cancer. In her early 40′s with 6 children still at home, Grammy married again. Her second husband died in the ’80s. At the time, they were parenting 3 of his grandchildren (the youngest was my age).

This morning, my Grammy and only grandparent for the last 14 years passed away a few hours into spring.

While I was growing up I did not have alot of contact with any of my grandparents. Our next door neighbour was 80 years older than me and had been a widower since the 40′s. Even though I called him Mr. So-and-so, he was the closest thing I had to a grandparent type relationship. He passed away at 88. I was grieved to the point that I wanted to cry but simply could not collect myself enough to do it. I said virtually nothing and avoided any contact I could for days.

My second grandfather died less than a week after my 12th birthday. I liked Grampie every bit as much as Mr. So-and-so, but I had only seen him over a handful of visits. I spent Valentine’s week in 1994 on a return trip to Ontario for my other Grammy’s funeral. Our anniversary is in 3 days. There is never a convenient time to lose someone dear.

In preparing to write this post, I did not want to say how grieved I am or how much I will miss her. But that, on it’s own would, either seem a bit callous or that it was due to her character. And, I didn’t want that.

What I did want to say is that I liked her. And I expect that there are very few who survived her and knew her who feel other wise.

Farewell, Grammy. You made it to spring.

Yesterday, Andrea posted this picture and wrote about my trip to Toronto:

Now, when I first heard about this jet a couple years ago I initially thought it was a bit excessive. But, after my trip to Toronto in 2006 on commercial flights, I recognized the value of a private jet to a company that has staff flying on an ongoing basis. On my 2006 return flight, I had to be at Pearson International more than 9 hours before I finally arrived home. The actual flight time was less than 2 hours of that.

Except that we made a detour to the drive thru at a Tim Horton’s for coffee and a muffin, we could have been in the office in Toronto at 8AM. Andrea and I left here at 6:30 (there’s a 1 hour time zone change). To do the same via commercial flight, I would have needed to have a flight that landed at 7AM to allow for walking time, waiting in line time, car rental time, etc. The departure time for said flight would be about 6AM in Fredericton. We are required to be at the airport an hour in advance of the flight. So, I’d have to be there at 5. Realistically, I’d have to leave here around 3AM.

It’s a big difference. And the thing is that people who fly frequently aren’t going to run that type of schedule all the time. Instead, they use a working day to travel. Then if you add the mileage for the return trip to the airport, the parking & other airport fees. It all adds up to be quite expensive. Nor have I found commercial air travel all that enjoyable.

As a quick note, readers here and at Andrea’s blog have had issues leaving comments. I’ve made some adjustments with the hope of alleviating that.

A 4 point good news update from the post last night:

• He did survive the night,
• The surgery went well,
• They believe they were successful in removing all of the tumour tissue, &
• By evening he was at some level aware that he had people at his bedside.

It was a long day, but one you don’t regret when it arrives at that sort of end.