On Saturday July 23rd, 1983 I anxiously repeated the following words:

I, Phillip, take you Jackie, to be my lawfully wedded  wife, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.

I didn’t understand the full weight of what I was committing to that day, but I said those words with surety and boldness. Thirty years later my mind plays back the movie of our life together and I recall the moments of “for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health”…

A lot of very memorable things happened in 1983!

  It is the renaissance of bad Pop Music.

 

 The Chicken McNugget is introduced, and family dinner is forever changed.

 Flashdance and torn sweatshirts are a hit.

And Ronald Reagan (Ronaldus Magnus) is our President.

 

A lifetime of 30 years ago –  A beautiful and naive 18 year old girl marries a very fortunate 20 year old guy, who gladly accepts the premise that love is blind.

Jackie and I had attended the same school since we were toddlers, but we officially met and began to “talk” when Jackie was an 8th grader and I was in 10th.  We were engaged the Christmas of Jackie’s Junior year. Call it serendipity, fate or providence… I don’t understand entirely how two kids like us from completely different circles found each other at a private school in Lynchburg, Virginia. It was lust at first sight for me, but God had something bigger in mind for us, something at the molecular level, that attracted and bonded. Jackie had just graduated high school, and I had just completed my Sophomore year of college, when we married. No doubt you hear the strumming of Dueling Banjos, as you conjure up images of a backwoods shotgun wedding in the hills of Virginia. But it wasn’t like that…seriously.

Jackie was an assistant manager at a trendy women’s retail store at the mall and worked crazy hours. I went to Lynchburg College during the day and worked a second-shift job at night. On evenings that she wasn’t working, I would go home for my “dinner break” to find an amazing home cooked meal. Her excellent cooking skills fattened me up quickly. While I was at work she would type my school papers for me on an old electric typewriter that shook the house when plugged in. I never asked her to do any of those things that made my life so much better, she just did them. Toughing out those first couple of years cemented our love for each other in ways that would serve us well over the course of time.

To say that I have been blessed is an understatement. I look back on these 30 years and shake my head in wonder. Our proudest accomplishments are our two amazing daughters who are such a crazy DNA cocktail of Jackie and I. Amanda and Lauren will still catch me in a kiss or a hug with their mom that is a bit too much public display of affection, and their eyes will roll and the mock disdain will pour forth… but in my heart I wish for them to experience from their husband this same feeling I have for their mom. And if my daughters can love their husband with the devotion, and loyalty and passion that has been modeled for them by their mom, then I don’t worry for these relationships.

To be blessed is not to be removed from the pain and suffering that comes with being in this physical world. We’ve had our share of struggles and adversity but my memories don’t linger there. Rather, I smile reflecting on those evenings now, when Jackie and I take a glass of wine out onto the patio after dinner and talk, and laugh, and reminisce and laugh some more. 

I’d like to think that is what is meant by “to have and to hold” – Having and holding on tightly to each other, along with every moment and every memory that will define who we will be as a couple.  It’s been said that the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts. There is no greater example of this truth than my marriage to Jackie. My goal is to be coherent enough to report back 30 years from now on how things are at our 60th anniversary. Lord willing, I’ll still be making my kids roll their eyes.