There are two young girls riding bikes in a circle on the patch of road just beyond my parent’s driveway. I don’t pay them much mind as I exit my car and walk around to let my dog out on the passenger’s side. We’ve been driving for about seven hours.
“Excuse me.” I turn to see the smallest of the little girls has parked her bike adjacent to the mailbox. “Do you live here?”
Little girls, by and large, are doggedly sincere in their communication, almost as a fault of genetics. Still, I'm pretty sure she's asking me a question she already knows the answer to.
“No, I’m actually their son,” I reply. “You know, the Campbells? I’m visiting.”
“Huh,” says the girl, still stationed at the edge of the driveway, the corner of her mouth upturned in what is either mildly incredulous disdain or a partial harelip. “I never knew they had a son.”
“I bet that’s not the only thing you don’t know,” I mumble.
“What?”
“Well, they do.”
“Uh huh.” The little girl maintains her vigil at the mailbox. I move to the front door. No one is home right now. I sincerely hope my parents haven’t changed the locks. The key slides in unchallenged. The door swings open. I lean back and wave cheerfully to the little girl. She sniffs, shrugs and remounts her bike. Today I have triumphed in a battle of wills against a six year old girl. Things are looking up for me…
** ~~ ** ~~ ** ~~ **
I came to Maine, to my parent’s house in Ellsworth, to take part in my parent’s vow renewal ceremony. My mother told me about the ceremony back in the spring, suggesting at the time that I would play an active role that was “to be determined”. I did not embrace the concept right away. To be honest, I had my fair share of doubts about vow renewals in general. What was the point? You’re already married. You can’t get more married. Nor, have I been lead to believe, does your original marriage expire at some point, necessitating a registration renewal not unlike one you would obtain for your ATV. As someone who’s never been married, I thought it was a little like throwing yourself a second 31st birthday party, because the first one didn’t take. (I didn’t have that problem. My 31st birthday party was cowboy themed. Please - your jealously embarasses us both.)
But I love my parents, so I was never going to say no. Plus, we were having Texas Ribeye at the reception. So again - things were looking up for me.
My dog Sam lets himself directly into the house and begins his mandatory sweep for unsecured foodstuffs and companionable housecats. He finds neither. I settle onto the couch and review my speech.
My sister and I have been tasked with officiating the ceremony. My sister, rather sweetly and very sincerely, asked my mother if she needed to get some sort of certification in order to perform the ceremony. She did not. In fact, we really don't have to do all that much, when it comes down to it. My mother has provided us with a rough outline of what's going to happen, with plenty of suggestions of what we could do or say (though ultimately, as unlicensed and uncompensated officiates, our input is paramount). I offered to write the introduction, partly because writing is kind of "my thing" (or thang, if you prefer), but mostly to give myself an opportunity (and the impetus) to work through the question "Why are we gathered here today?" on my own terms. Because my parents are happy these days, happier than I'm used to knowing them, and life moves so imperceptibly sometimes, and the changes that we go through are so subtle while they're happening that you usually don't see it at all until one day you look up and say, "Holy shit! This isn't at all how I remember things being!" And so I asked myself "Why are we gathered here today?" and I thought I found some of the truth of it...
…despite what you may have been led to believe we aren’t here to celebrate something that happened over 30 years ago. Not really. In reality, we’re here to celebrate what happened yesterday and the day before and the day before and on and on. You see today isn’t about getting married. It’s about being married. And today isn’t about falling in love, it’s about staying in love. It’s about something much harder and more fantastic and more amazing than simply finding the person with which you plan to live the rest of your life – it’s about actually doing it. Today is a celebration of everything that has happened since these two breathtakingly attractive people said “I do.” It’s about love, yes, but it’s about work, too, and devotion and sacrifice...
There's a clatter of dancing dog feet. Sam skitters past the crack of the basement doorway. A furry, black shape hulks in the dark of the doorframe, gargling a low, husky warning. Sam whines and looks up at me hopefully.
"She's not going to be your friend. I'm sorry."
Sam shakes his head and turns away from me, clearly disgusted by my lack of faith in the power of persistence. The furry black blob yowls and flashes a tiny mitt of gray-tipped knifes. Sam wags his stub of a tail.
"I was wrong to doubt you." I spy the clock. We've been here for two hours and neither of my parents have returned. Somewhere I feel the hot glare of a six year old girl fixed upon the house. Time to start calling cell phones...
~~ ** ~~ ^^ ~~ ** ~~
That evening the majority of the principals and their assorted hangers-on gathered for dinner at a local restaurant, which proclaimed itself to be the home of Wilbur the Lobster. I presumed, based primarily on the size of the sign that made this boast, that Wilbur was either excessively old or possibly telepathic. In reality, he was actually just a statue of a lobster, though an admittedly large statue - probably the largest statue of a lobster named Wilbur I've ever seen.
Dinner passed largely without incident. I know - I was disappointed, too.
My sister and her husband have hired a babysitter to attend the renewal and “neutralize” their two-year old, Jack. Jack appears to be afflicted with a terminal case of over-enthusiasm for practically everything. The arrival of his milk the previous night at dinner resulted in a spastic screaming fit of excitement. The appearance of an unreasonably patient cat on the grounds prior to the ceremony ignited a fifteen minute hunt comprised primarily of a lot of wobbly running and ecstatic gibbering. So it’s no surprise that mid-way through the ceremony, after more or less successfully fulfilling his obligations in the procession (stopping halfway down the aisle to perform a somewhat interpretive version of The Worm), Jack disappears.
His brother Nolan, meanwhile, maintains a seat in the front row. He’s been appointed the ringer-bearer and holds a small green gourd in his lap to which the new rings have been tied. He’s also the self-appointed Laugh Really Loud at Everything Everyone Says guy, which is great right up until the point where my mom makes a speech wishing that her father were still alive to enjoy this and Nolan falls out of his chair laughing. You’d think that might invalidate all the big laughs he gave me during my speech, but you’d be wrong. Five-year-olds just get me, man.
It’s somewhere past 8pm and what’s left of us is sitting in the main house of the Edgewater Cabins in Sullivan, Maine. There are stacks of plates on the ends of every folding table, the flower centerpieces slightly askew but mostly intact. The small staff floats around the periphery, gathering, replacing, sorting, clearing. I’m sitting at the last occupied table with my sister, my father and my uncle’s family. The ceremony ended three hours ago; dinner about an hour and a half ago. The owner flits quietly into the room.
“How did everything go?” she asks, retrieving a short stack of potato and asparagus encrusted plates.
“Well, they’re still married,” I say, picking at the paper label of an empty beer bottle. “So that’s good, right?”
I say it as a joke, but technically it is true. My mom and dad came into the day as husband and wife and left it pretty much the same way. Nothing really happened - at least I suppose it looks that way from the outside. But that’s the happy little secret of renewal ceremonies – it’s a day to celebrate the mundane, the same-old, the passing of a couple thousand Tuesdays together. It’s not a day to make promises – it’s a day to celebrate all the promises that were kept.
And more than that - I think it's a day to celebrate the promises you didn't make, the ones you never thought of, the compromises you never envisioned, and the changes you never knew you were even capable of. Because my parents are not the people they were when I was younger - they're better; better for themselves and better for each other. And I know how hard they both worked to make that happen. And that's something to celebrate.
Mid-way through the ceremony my mother took a moment to address the 40 or so family members and friends in attendance. She thanked them for coming and let them in on the biggest secret of all: “The real reason we’re here today is to say thank you to all of you. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to keep a marriage healthy. We wouldn’t be here today without your love and support and understanding. Because you were there for us, we were able to be there for each other. We just wanted you to know how much you’ve all meant to us and to this relationship.”
So there you go. I learned the secret of a successful marriage. AND I got steak for dinner.
Victory.