March 31, 2012

The secret to a happy marriage

It is not who is kinder

she told me this
and other things
out of the corner of her mouth
as though we might get detention
for talking
on the bus.

I was fifteen
she was eighty

married for over fifty years
she said with amazement
as though referring to someone else.

She was tall
and winked a lot
which had a way of making
me feel special
even though we just met

you can’t water a garden in a drought
she laughed like a cowboy
the nicest thing you can do for a husband
is be the smartest
happiest
most irresistible
you.

I asked her what he was like
she smiled and she said he was long dead
but he made her laugh so much
she had a backlog of love
to last her
until it was her time
to join him.

I thought of her today
in the grocery store
when my husband lifted my son over the aisle
to peer down on me
so it looked like he was fifteen feet tall

the little grievances I’d been nurturing the past hour
like rotten fruit
fluttered away
and I finally got what she meant
about the drought

I laughed out loud
and as the happiness returned
I could almost feel the love
gushing.

It made me ache for the kind of heaven
they show in the movies
the two of them up there
all shiny and warm
he is telling her stories
and she is floating
in joy.