ANNIVERSARY

Fifty-four years ago I was lucky enough to marry Kitty.  I had just graduated from College and had no prospects.  She was a student at Lowell State College (now UMass Lowell), majoring in Education.

Kitty was a fallen-away Catholic, but one can never fall too far away from the Church and she wanted to be married by a priest.  Whether this was for her sake, or for the sake of her relatives, I don't really know; I just knew that I would have married her in the Church of the Speckled Green Frog if that was what she wanted.   It happened that the lounge in her dormitory, Concordia Hall, had been consecrated by the Church for their services, so that's where we were married.  In the round, surrounded on the left and right by relatives and friends, in front of us the altar and a fountain statue of Orpheus (and someone had forgotten to turn off the water for the fountain **sigh**), and to the rear of us a large gaggle of college coeds, residents of the dormitory and many in their pajamas, looking on.

The priest was Father Joseph Flynn, the head of the college's Neuman Center, and a super-nice guy. who was a little wary of us tying the knot.  Kitty ran into him about fifteen years later and he told her he was afraid out marriage would not last, but it turned out that, of all the students he had married, we were the only couple still together.  He was, he said, very glad to have been proven wrong.

My brother Ken was my best man.  He had gotten a haircut that morning and when my mother saw him, she made him get another haircut.  (I think life was a bit confusing for my mother in 1970.)  Kitty made and sewed the bridesmaid outfits.  Music was provided by friends with guitars -- songs by Phil Ochs, Ian and Sylvia, and Chad Mitchell.  (Did I mention it was 1970?)

There was never a more beautiful bride.

We had a champagne reception that was crashed by many of the students that knew Kitty only slightly.  We didn't mind.  We wanted the world to share in our joy.  The venue, however minded a tad, because they ran out of champagne; Kitty's father sent them scurrying throughout the city to find more champagne.  Kitty insisted that it wasn't her fault that they ran out of bubbly -- she had only one glass all evening, and was it her fault that the glass was never emptied?   A miracle if I ever saw one.  Afterward, the party moved to Kitty's house, where my prim and proper Uncle Arthur got a bit tiddly (something completely unlike him) and began flirting with one of the bridesmaids (something absolutely not like him), igniting the slow-smoking ire of my (even more prim and proper) Aunt Thelma.  (Did I mention a lot of champagne had been consumed that evening?)

Meanwhile, my bride and I were headed to Nova Scotia and Quebec for our honeymoon.  We learned that Kitty, who is a water rat and a sailor at heart, was no match for the rolling waves of the Bay of Fundy in March.  We also learned that parts of Canada just over the border "don't serve no fancy drinks like" Budweiser (there had been an advertisement on the radio for Bud just before we entered the restaurant; granted, it must have been a US station just over the border).  We also learned that high school French means diddlysquat in Quebec when the waitress said she spoke English "un peu"; we unwittingly order some sort of sausage and red cabbage concoction.  C'est la vie.

And so we began out life together, blessed with many ups and a few downs.  Though it all we had each other.  We laughed a lot and cried a little.  For fifty-two years, five months, and eleven days we were together, seldom apart for more than a day.

Now, on our fifty-fourth anniversary, part of me is saddened that she is not by my side.  Except, in reality, she is.  Her love for me and my love for her continues.  It is silly to think that death could ever take that away.

Today, I remain grateful for the time we had together.  For that, I am happy.  When I married Kitty I was the luckiest man on Earth.

I still am.