Celebrating a half century of true love

As appearing in the Niagara Gazette and the Lockport Union Sun and Journal

8/11/2019

Last Friday, my wife Donna and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary.

A half-century ago, we were a pair of young, clueless kids. We went out into the world with everything we owned in the back of a Volkswagon “beetle” and drove 500 miles from home to establish a life of our own in Newport, Rhode Island. If it weren’t for wedding presents, we wouldn’t have had enough money for gas to get to Newport, which was my ship’s home port while I was in the Navy.

We first moved into a fleabag motel. Living there depleted our funds quickly so we scoured want ads in the local papers, looking for a cheap apartment. We didn’t have much money but we had our love to keep us going.

Then a shipboard buddy told us about some inexpensive apartments in Fall River, Massachusetts, just across the state line. We moved into this welfare development where your rent was based on your income. I was earning $64 a month back then. Our rent was $32 a month. Fortunately our rent included the heat and electricity. After I paid the rent, I had $8 a week left over for our phone bill, food, gasoline and auto insurance. Heaven forbid my car would break down. All the money we had left from our wedding went into cheap, pressed wood furniture. We still have some of that furniture today.

We were living without the benefit of family nearby so we had no safety net and we had to do whatever it took on our own to survive. We learned more about self-dependence than we had ever known. It made us reliant on each other.

I was proud of Donna the first time I went to sea. She didn’t go home to her parents. The apartment we shared was now home to her, and with the help of a few friends who were close to us, she was able to stay in our place. I am thankful to our next door neighbors, Millie and her family, for helping Donna out. Tony, Millie’s youngest, would spend more time at our house than his own keeping Donna company.

One of my friends, Cole, a bosun’s mate and mountain of a man, would check in on her to see if she was OK during my absences and if she needed anything.

The neighbors would share their food with us and showed us how to apply for a monthly allotment of surplus food that the state gave to low income people. Every month we would have a food exchange in the common area of the complex. We would meet up with whatever free food we didn’t want and swap it for food we did.

It was during this time we had two of our children. How crazy were we to do this? I don’t know. We figured, “How expensive would it be to have children?” Of course, this was in the days of cloth diapers, rubber pants and diaper pails.

As I look back on those times, I have to wonder just how we made it. Foolish as we were, we managed to survive. We were from the generation that believed when you made a promise, you kept it.

I think often about how much in love we were. How our marriage was made stronger by having to make it on our own in the early years. How we couldn’t run home to our parents when we had differences of opinion. How I learned the four phrases that helped keep us together: “Yes dear,” “You are right,” “I understand,” and most importantly, “I love you.”

Now, 50 years later, I think about all the problems we overcame together, standing back to back with our guns drawn, ready to take on whatever came at us.

I now send my wife a cheesy text every morning, professing my love for her to make her smile and to let her know that I am thinking about her. I also try to keep fresh flowers in the house just because. She is the best thing that ever happened to me and I love her with all my soul.

The first time I saw her, my heart whispered “That’s the one.” Imagining my life without her is impossible and I am so lucky to be able to spend my life with her.

Norb Rug is a writer from Lockport. His email is nrug@juno.com where he welcomes comments

Love Poems

old couple walking while holding hands — Photo by Noelle Otto on Pexels.com

I recently received a picture of a painting from a local Buffalo artist of two older people hand in hand walking away due to something I had published in the newspaper. It reminded me of my wife and me, always walking hand in hand wherever we go.

I remember meeting her at a birthday party I crashed with a friend of mine. It was the wild sixties. I picked her up and carried her off into a corner loudly proclaiming “This one’s mine”. I had dated quite a few girls but had never met anyone like her. Eventually, I fell in love and I remember trying to find a way to ask her how to marry me.

She worked at Saint Mary’s Home for Children with children who had birth defects and knowing how much she loved children, I devised what I thought was the ideal line. One that I thought she could not say no to.

One night at Ellicott Creek Park, as we were looking out across the water and I said I had something to talk to her about. I then asked her to marry me and have my children. She hesitated a bit and I thought I had blown it. I realize now when I said I had something to talk to her about, this wasn’t quite what she was expecting, but she manage to say “Yes.”

It also reminded me of a few short poems I wrote to her several years ago that she has framed on her dresser.

The first poem reads.
Thru good times. Thru Bad.
Thru happy. Thru sad.
Thru high. Thru low.
Thru you, I’m whole.

The good times were all the years we have been together, going to dinner, laughing and loving each other. The bad times were when I was being treated for cancer and I would lay in bed sleeping, only waking to eat chocolate covered mini doughnuts. The Oncologists and I didn’t think I would see another Christmas. She would lay beside me comforting me thru it all. I firmly believe she are the reason I made it.

The happy is when she said “Yes” at Ellicott Creek Park and when she said “I do” in Saint Patrick’s church in 1969. It also relates to the children and grandchildren she has given me. She has given me an amazing, loving family. The sad is the loss of family members we have both suffered.

The High is the soaring feeling I get seeing her, hearing her voice and snuggling with her on the weekends. The low is the times we had to spend apart while I was in the service. She will never know just how I missed her then.

With you, I’m whole means that without her, I would be a ship drifting on the sea of loneliness. Completely lost. I never thought I would deserve such a loving, kind person in my life. One who accepted me for who I am.

The second one’s a three-word poem that goes. Together, Forever, Whatever. This reflects in three words how I feel about us. Sometimes simple is best. Both of these poems reflect what she means to me.

In all the years we have been together, I don’t ever remember having a major argument. We’ve had disagreements sure, but we always resolved them quickly.
She is my soulmate, the Yin to my Yang, the ping to my pong, the day to my night. We’ve been together for 50 years and I want another 50. She will always be my “Bride”.

Words of love, so soft and tender, won’t win a girls heart anymore: The Mamas And The Papas (1966)

man and woman holding hands walking on seashore during sunrise — Photo by Ibrahim Asad on Pexels.com

When I was in the service, I would try to write my wife as often as I could, relating where I was and what I was doing. These usually contained expressions of my love for her but the envelope, oh the envelope, I would adorn it with the number 143. That was my code for the number of letters in the words I love you. One cruise she was pregnant with my daughter and I wrote the 143 vertically and put a smaller 143 inside the 4. This represented my wife carrying my child.

As a family we have many ways of expressing our love for each other. If we happen to be holding hands, 3 gentle squeezes mean I love you. This will be followed by 4 gentle squeezes in response meaning I love you too. Another way we express our love for each other is by flashing the ILY a sign from American Sign Language which means I love you. The sign originated among deaf schoolchildren using American Sign Language to create a sign from a combination of the signs for the letters I, L and Y and is our personal “gang” hand sign.

Another way we say I love you is by saying “Owie”. This developed from a daughter who as a very young child and was just learning to talk responding “owie” every time we said I love you to her. Again this is a family specific way to let each other know how we feel about each other without yelling I love you in a crowded room.

One time I used a label maker to put I love you on the lid of the wash machine so every time my wife did laundry she would see it. This had a very humorous side effect one day when my furniture was in storage at my parent’s house after I got out of the Navy. A repairman showed up to fix the damage the moving company caused to the washer and when he opened the lid he said “I love you”. My mother was aghast until the repairman explained he was just reading the lid.

When I worked, I used to call my wife in the middle of the day to chat and tell her I loved her. There are many ways to say I love you and we say it to each other frequently. I tell my wife I love you several times a day and she says it to me but I also try to have fresh flowers in the house because she likes them and it is my way of saying I love you. She on the other hand, always ensures I have clean clothes. I frequently remark on my magic underwear drawer that seems to fill itself up whenever it gets low. She always makes me delicious meals and desserts. This is part of the reason I have gained 90 pounds since we married 48 years ago. That’s 90 pounds of love she gave me.

When my wife had a minivan I found some red rubbery hearts that I stuck on her rear view mirror. Every time she looked at it, it was like I was telling her I love you. When I bought her the new minivan this was one of the first things I transferred.

The love we show has spilled over to our grandchildren and they will frequently end a text to either Nana or me with a 143. We have several paper hearts that our granddaughter made sprinkled throughout our house. She stuck them on the bathroom mirror, the television in our bed room and many other places. Every time we see them we know we are loved.

We recently watched an 11 year old for a month this summer. We watched her from the time she was 7 weeks old until her family moved to North Carolina. One day she left me a note saying”Love Ya” on my end table. This is now taped inside my laptop where it reminds me of her every day.

It is easy to let someone know you love them. Write on the bathroom mirror with a small amount of hand soap on your finger and when the mirror steams up you will leave a little love message! On your way out in the morning, draw a heart in the snow. Telling someone you love them doesn’t have to be a grandiose gesture. It can be as small as a squeeze, a word, or just doing something nice for a person.

The Mamas And The Papas got it all wrong. Words of love will win a girls heart.

couple engagement hands human — Photo by Leah Kelley on Pexels.com