Published: December 19, 2006 07:10 pm         

If You Ask Me by Guinn Sweet

Hard to find one word to describe 63 years of marriage

By Guinn Sweet

sweettalk@mineralwellsindex.com

This past Thursday, Colon and I completed 63 years of marriage.

Funny, when you look at that many years from the front of it, how much longer it seems than when you look at it from this point. It seems like a short time ago that we stood in my grandparents’ living room with my brother, Roland, and my best friend, Mary Lou, standing with us. The minister said, “I now pronounce you man and wife.” Of all those who were in attendance, we are the only survivors. That single fact is the only saddening thing about our memories of that day.

Many literate and wise men have commented in many tongues on the longevity of love. Among the most satisfying is that of Quinitas Horatius Flaccus, better known simply as Horace, a Roman lyric poet who wrote and sang before the birth of Christ. He said, “Carpe diem … while we are talking, time will have meanly run on: … Thrice blest (and more) are the couple whose ties are unbroken and whose love, never strained by nasty quarrels, will not slip until their dying day.”

I couldn’t have said it better.

When we said our vows, they were just that: vows which we meant to keep. We understood, even at the young ages of 19 and 21, that we were taking a God-planned and blessed step into forever. We had been brought up to make marriage a lifetime commitment to God, to each other, and to any family we might have. Just between us folks here, I figured if it lasted for 50 years (my desired goal) that would be great, but I would accept longer if that turned out to be in our future.

The reason that we were confident that we were in this mating for the long haul was in reviewing the routes to which we had been led to this place. Colon was born in Globe, Ariz., in 1924. Two years later, I was born in Texas, with no thought of ever living elsewhere. In 1930, his family moved to Melrose, N.M., and mine moved to St. Vrain, about eight miles this side of Melrose.

We went to different elementary schools, but became acquainted one summer day between my eighth grade completion and the beginning of high school, which would take me to Melrose High School. Little did I know as my brother, father and I piled into our l936 Ford to drive over to Fort Sumner to pick peaches for cooking and preserving that I was starting a journey of a lifetime.

It was on that drive that we passed two young men on the highway hitching a ride west of Melrose. They were going swimming at Cottonwood Grove. Brother recognized them – one being Colon, the other his friend Clay – and picked them up and delivered them to the swimming hole. The first meeting was not the most auspicious. I thought his bleached blond hair and blistered nose and lips were ugly and he confessed later that he thought of me as a funny looking little shorty, with the probability of becoming a fatty in the near future.

In spite of that, our paths kept crossing in the halls of academia, and he began to look better, especially when I found out that he was a jock on the football team. About that time he said he began noticing that my dresses had begun to take on some intriguing curves and shapes. The new perceptions turned into a mutual interest, which led to dating, which led to our falling in love. Our courtship was cut short by World War II, Japan and the South Pacific, but it didn’t sever the connections that formed while we were together in school, and that fact led us to the marriage altar on the day after the first atom bomb was dropped. There are many funny events connected with his getting home and our getting married, but suffice it to say, we got the job done.

I have been trying all week to narrow my description of our married life to one word. I tried “great,” but it wasn’t always that. We lost a 2-year-old son. We lost all of our parents. We lost a business and a fortune.

I tried out the word, “satisfying,” but it was much more than that. Then it was “completeness.” It was more than that, too. It was “supportive,” but an adjective would be needed to describe the support.

It was “arranged in Heaven.” True, but too many words. It was “practical,” and maybe that is the nearest I can come to a one-word commentary. It was practical in the sense that even in our differences, we were compatible. When I wanted to spend, he held the reins. When he wanted to spend, he convinced me of the need.

After all this thought, I believe that the best way of telling others how “right” our marriage has been (I didn’t say pain-free, trouble-free or totally peaceful), is just to say the word “right.” I wouldn’t have had it any other way!

(Yes, he remembered the special day … he asked me if I wanted to go out and eat to celebrate my birthday!)