May 13, 2024 - #mondaymoment #marriage #parents #anniversary
Happy Monday and Happy Mother’s Day, my friends! This past weekend my family not only celebrated Mother’s Day, we also celebrated my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. They were married at St. Timothy Roman Catholic Parish in Dublin, OH, on Saturday, May 12, 1984. My mom chose to keep her given name. My maternal grandmother told her that would make it easier when she got divorced. My paternal grandfather told my father that it wasn’t a real wedding because my mom wasn’t changing her name. My grandfather called a few weeks later to apologize.
During the rehearsal dinner several of my dad’s groomsmen and the priest smoked marijuana in the parking lot and the wedding reception featured Bob Jolly and his Band. Shortly after the reception my parents left for a car tour of New England featuring stops at the Bee and Thistle Inn; Kennebunkport, ME; and New Hope, PA (which years later they’d return to with me when I lived in PA).
Some people might call our family dysfunctional when I was growing up. My mother’s blunt, my father wears his emotions on his sleeve, and my sister and I couldn’t have been more different. One of our aunts remarked that our family simply operated at a higher decibel level than most people. The dinner table routinely involved debates over politics, foreign affairs, church, and more. We were rarely, if ever, told what to believe, but the debate could become contentious quick.
As I think about my parents, the years they spent raising my sister and me, the sacrifices they made, the many times my dad wanted a new job, and when I’m sure my mom wanted to return to work, but chose to stay at home, I recognize all the time, conversation, and dynamics between them that I missed as a kid and then after I left for college and my career. As a child and teen, I really thought that as soon as my sister and I were in bed that my parents stopped talking. Not so much that they simply failed to speak to each other, that they enter some kind of stasis from which they emerged just in time to wake us up in the morning.
You can tell from my retelling of their wedding and honeymoon—events which occurred three years before I was born—that I don’t have all the information. I’ve seen the pictures, seen the hat my mom wore (yes, there was a hat…it was the 80s), heard about it from my parents and others who were there, but I’ve heard the highlights, not the nuances. I’ve heard what people remember less because those details were important, but because they stood out. Someday, Jack will ask me about his parents’ wedding, and I won’t mention the music, the food, or other elements. Instead, I’ll tell him about how his mom danced with his dad with a Bud Light in her hand, how his “uncle” Christian had a bit too much and spent the night reminding me how good my reading was, or how it was one of the only times I can remember his PopPop (my dad) quoting poetry publicly for the father of the bride toast.
What do you remember about your parents and how they raised you?
Let us pray: Heavenly Parent, bless the people who raised and supported us, particularly our mothers. Whatever the composition or context of our families, whether those are birth families, chosen families, or a combination of the two, hold our families in your loving hands. Amen.
Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.
Faithfully,
Ben
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