02/16/2024
By Kate Stone Lombardi
This year I made Michael a Valentine’s Day card. I meant it to be professional-looking, but in the end it looked like an elementary-school art project, complete with construction paper and glued on copies of photographs.
Anyway, this homemade valentine included pictures from when we were first dating (ages 24 and 29 respectively) and extended all the way to the present. On one of the pages, I wrote the comment, “I can’t believe we’ve been hanging out for 42 years.”
Mike, reading the card, looked up and said, “It’s 43 years.”
Well, we’ve been married long enough that he knows my math skills are abominable. And I know that despite his deadpan tone, he loved the card.
People talk a lot about aging, but not so much about aging marriages. They grow old too. If you’re lucky. And I don’t mean old in the sense of becoming more frail or worn out. I mean they age like people – with some loss, sure, but also with wisdom and patience and a depth in a relationship that’s just not possible when you’re younger.
Our bookshelves are lined with dozens of photo albums documenting our journey together. Dating – giddy, bright eyed, wrapped around each other. Me, hugely pregnant, smiling and a little anxious, peering over a crib decorated with stuffed animals, bumpers and mobiles. (All stuff that I would later learn as a grandparent is today considered dangerous.) Michael and me with toddlers, with school aged kids, on family trips, with sullen teens who refused to smile for the camera, graduations, weddings, adventurous trips that just the two of us have taken together.
Mike’s hair, once jet black, begins to show signs of grey and is gradually taken over my silver. My hair, in various shades of blonde (depending on my hairdresser at the time) and finally a blond and silver mix.
There were times I didn’t think we would make it. Now I understand why the marriage vows hit the highlights they do. In sickness and in health (terrifying trips to the hospital), for richer and poorer (on those career roller coasters), for better and for worse (we each dished out a healthy share of worse, and, I like to think, better).
Every time I turn around these days, it feels as if there’s another book or podcast on “open marriage” or “polyamory.” Well, good luck, God bless, and it’s not my business. For me, it’s plenty to nurture just one intimate relationship.
I remember being young, and seeing an elderly couple holding hands. And I’d think, “Oh, that’s so cute!” But now I know it’s more than cute. It’s fortitude, lots of work and incredibly good luck.
This is not a victory lap. It’s just that when I put together that Valentine card, I was taken aback with all we’ve been through together. And – if we are extremely fortunate – whatever we have ahead of us.