Mountain-Sized Love

October 25th, 2010

Sometimes, love is like a moderately steep incline.

You get a little winded, and your body is challenged by the effort of moving in a way it’s not used to moving, but you keep going. You might have to stop every now and then to catch your breath and remind yourself why you’re on this path in the first place. But then you look at the person next to you, remembering when you saw them for the first time, and, suddenly, it doesn’t seem nearly as difficult.

I imagine that’s what the man in this picture was thinking. My friend and I passed him on a trail at the base of Mt. Rainier. It was an easy trail as far as trails at the base of a mountain go, but even for those of us carrying nothing but a camera, it was still quite difficult. My friend and I stopped every few minutes to catch our breath.

And that’s when we saw them. An old woman in a wheelchair, and her husband, pushing her slowly up the hill. He wanted her to see the mountain.

It certainly was something to behold.

The couple, not the mountain.

I had seen the mountain for the first time in my life, and was truly awed by its majesty. No photo could ever do it justice. I stood there in silence, drinking it all in. But nothing – not even the profound miracle of nature – compared with the display of selflessness and love exhibited by this man.

You could tell he was having a tough time. He stopped every few steps.

He was pushing a wheelchair uphill.

But I think he was doing more than that.

I think he was holding up a promise. He promised in sickness and in health, but he also promised the sharing of life experiences, the creation of joy and the promise not to give up — even when things prove challenging.

After we passed the couple, my friend and I stopped at the side of the trail — not because we were tired, but because we were crying. This photo doesn’t quite explain the beauty contained in that singular moment.

I learned there is a majesty to love. In all its rocky, misshapen twists and turns, there is a bigness to it – and it shows up in the smallest of ways. Like on the tattered wheels of a silver chariot, slowly inching its way up a mountain. And on the determined smile of the driver in back, who knows that the heart, much like the body, can only be strengthened if you exercise it.

Special thanks to my dear friend, Pamela Scholl, for taking this photo, and for stopping with me to silently witness my eleventh love story.

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Lou and Bee

October 11th, 2010

They buy bananas together. He holds the left side of the cart, and she the right.

I see them one day at Whole Foods, and he proudly tells me that they have the best bananas around.

“They’re organic,” she chimes in.

I watch as they walk away, and can’t help but smile at how adorable they look. He, in his khaki pants, pulled up to the top of his hunched-over chest, and all five feet of her, shuffling along in checkered pants and pearls.

Whether in the grocery store or in my apartment building, they are always together. Always smiling. Most of the time, he is asleep in whatever chair he is sitting in, and she is reading a book, or looking out into the garden. Every time I look at them, I think they look like the kind of couple who has a lifetime of stories to share.

Today, I decided to ask them.

Lou and Bee have been married 72 years.

They met while playing basketball at the YMHA (Young Men’s Hebrew Association) in St. Louis.

Lou recalls an immediate attraction, book-ended by a sad realization.

“She didn’t want any part of me,” he says.

Bee was involved with someone else at the time, but recalls Lou being quite persistent.

“He said when he saw me, he knew he’d marry me, but I never knew that,” she laughs.

His persistence paid off.

They dated just five months, and were married January 8, 1938.

Lou was in the service for 27 months, not long after they were married, and their first child was born when he was away. He wrote Bee letters all the time, and she kept every one of them.

They never argue. Bee says Lou would just clam up anyway, so there was really no point.

Lou says there really wasn’t ever anything worth fighting over.

“So much of it is simple respect,” he adds.

They have always spoken so sweetly to one another. Lou takes care of her. In fact, Bee has had a few falls, and her health has gotten a lot worse, so they have learned to share their lives with one other person — Bee’s caregiver.

She comes a few hours a day – enough time to allow Lou to have his daily breakfast of scrambled eggs, an English muffin and fruit at First Watch (“Their breakfast-type food is so good,” he remarks), and then volunteer at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

They used to meet a couple every Saturday for lunch, but not so much anymore.

Instead, Lou keeps a careful eye on Bee, who mostly stays on the couch, staring into a garden she once used to watch from a much closer angle. But she doesn’t let it get her down.

“Everybody’s got something,” she says. “You don’t get out of this world as easy as you got in.”

But, then, you don’t always get in or out of this world with a partner like Lou by your side.

“If you’re lucky enough to live a long life like we have, and live it together, you have nothing to complain about,” Bee says.

I think for a moment about what she said. About being lucky to travel through life with the same person – for more than 70 years. Someone who sits next to you on the couch and stares out into the garden with you, even though he could walk out there and get a closer look. Someone who drives you around the city on architectural tours, and makes you bagels when your hands are shaking too much. Someone who knew, the day he saw you, that he wanted to spend the rest of his life talking to you. Someone who has neck arthritis, but still turns to look at you when you speak.

“We manage pretty well,” Lou shrugs.

Sure sounds like it to me.

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Amy and Randy

September 27th, 2010

I am watching them talk.

They’re across the table from me, in their cozy little backyard, having a conversation about coffee. I don’t really know what they’re saying, but I like the way they interact.

Randy has a soft tone to his voice, and speaks to Amy like she’s a friend. Like he cares about the way his words impact her.

Amy smiles all the time. She has a smile in her voice, even. Just sitting next to her makes you feel more cheery.

We’re sipping iced tea, and they’re telling me about the name of their unborn child. Jackson, they think. It was the name of one of the mountains Amy climbed in Montana.

I watch them together and I think they could probably talk to each other for hours and not get bored of each other’s company. Often, I watch couples interact in public, and no one seems to talk. It’s almost painful to watch. Sometimes, I’ve seen couples spend an entire meal without saying even one word to each other.

But Amy and Randy have a lot to say. That’s really important.

Communication in a relationship is key. So are shared interests and belief structures.

They are vegetarians – and were before they even knew each other, Amy makes sure to point out. It’s just one of the many things they share in common.

They’ve been together 10 years. Right before Amy turned 21. They’ve been married for six of those years.

It’s funny the way things turns out. How someone is placed in your life (like in your neighborhood AND your middle school), directly in front of your face, and you don’t ever really notice them. But then, years later, you happen to be walking across your college campus, and you see that person. And this time, you notice a little bit. And during the next few years, you start to notice a lot more. And they do, too. And the next thing you know, you’re staring at your future.

That’s exactly how it happened.

They both grew up in Gig Harbor, Washington. Their houses were less than a mile apart. They went to the same middle school and, though they knew each other, they were never friends.

Their siblings knew each other, but Amy’s and Randy’s paths never really crossed.

Then came college. Freshman year, Randy was rooming with a friend from high school who kept talking about these two girls, Amy and Adrian. Later in the quarter, as he was walking across campus, and his roommate pointed them out, Randy quickly realized that the Amy in this story was none other than his Gig Harbor classmate.

Turns out, the pair had similar friends and, soon, the circles in which they traveled would converge.

“We’d run into each other at potlucks,” Amy recalls, “but Randy was always quiet. His best friend had a huge ego and wanted to talk all the time, so I lumped Randy in the same category. During Junior year, Adrian and I took a Scottish country dancing class, and we started dancing at an outdoor concert. Randy was there.”

Randy was dating someone at the time (though it was coming to end), and noted that it took a lot of pressure off trying to impress anyone, so he could be as silly as he wanted to be.

“Sure, I’ll jump into this highland reel and make a fool of myself,” he laughs.

After that, the two started hanging out on a regular basis.

A unique twist, however: Amy was on a dating sabbatical.

“I always had boyfriends, all through high school,” she admits. “After I broke up with my last boyfriend, I decided not to date for at least a year. I want to know that all the things I think about myself — that I’m smart, funny and worth being around — are true because I know they are, not because some guy is telling me those things. After the first year, I wanted to do another year because it felt so awesome.”

So Amy and Randy became friends. They had potlucks together. They walked places together. They even became sailing buddies.

“When I couldn’t get into a sailing class I wanted, I asked Randy to promise to go sailing with me once a week,” Amy says. “He was already starting to like me by that point. It was such a funny time. We were sailing every week and took another class together, but it was very platonic on my side. I wasn’t at all open to a relationship.”

Then came the true test: stormy weather.

One particular day, the pair decided to have lunch before they went sailing. And then one of Amy’s male friends from Seattle decided to come for a visit. All this while Amy was already hosting another male friend from out of town. They were all there at once, and they invited themselves to lunch with Amy and Randy.

“I remember trying to cook,” Randy says. “I didn’t have enough food. Suddenly there are these guys all trying to add this special dash to the food to impress Amy. At one point I realize I’m making the meal and they’re chatting up Amy. I planned on sailing with her, but now I wasn’t sure. I said, ‘Well, Amy, do what you want to do. I’m still going sailing.’”

Amy had an a-ha moment while her two male visitors pulled her in different directions, and knew then and there she would be going sailing with Randy. And maybe he’d be the only person she wanted to keep sailing with – forever.

She remembers thinking, “That’s what it is. When you find someone who lets you do what you want to do and doesn’t pull on you or pressure you or make you feel guilty. That’s the feeling you should have.”

After that, everything changed.

“It was like this veil had been pulled away, and I was seeing him for who he was and what that could mean to me,” Amy says. “It really scared me. I didn’t see any end with him. It was really hard for me to meet the person I was going to marry when I was 20. I was always the last in my group of friends who wanted to get married. I really didn’t think it was possible to meet that person so young. It was a big leap of faith.”

Not for Randy.

“I had girlfriends, but it always tended to be more long-term,” he admits. “Dating is not a casual thing to me. Maybe I didn’t have marriage in mind that early, but I knew that we were right for each other.”

Amy felt the same.

“My parents are still married, and my mom’s siblings are all still married to their original partners,” she says. “I also had a very protective brother who was always honest with me about how guys viewed girls, and why it was better to be the girlfriend. I didn’t have any interest in being ‘that girl’ to someone.”

What Amy and Randy Have Learned About Love

Amy: Randy and I had rich, fulfilling personal relationships, so we weren’t seeking out someone to fulfill that part of us. Someone else was just an enhancement of who we already were.

Love is so much more selfless than I ever knew. It really is about choosing what’s best for that other person. Not putting your needs aside, but really honing in on your partner and discovering what they need. We do these camping trips. When we first got together, I wanted us to carry equal weight. But look at our size difference. Randy would nonchalantly start setting up camp and make dinner while I just sat there. He knew how to take care of me and still make me feel like it was a partnership.

It’s so much more fun than I ever thought it would be. Every single day I have fun with Randy. And I laugh. I have so much respect for him and who he is as a person. He comes to life with such integrity and honesty, and it really encourages me to bring those same qualities to my life.

Randy: I get fulfillment out of having that person in my life to care for. It’s not anything I wouldn’t want to be doing. It’s my chance to give something back, and give more to the relationship.

Amy: We can be honest with one another, and talk through situations. We’ve always had an easy relationship. In ten years, I can honestly say we’ve never yelled at each other. Neither of us like drama. We don’t feel like to have a passion-filled relationship we need to be fighting. But we’ve had a lot of different challenges and had to figure out how to navigate them together. Parents who were ill, changes in jobs, all those life situations.

We try to cultivate a spirit of gratitude for what we have. I feel more fortunate today than I did yesterday, or a year before, to have the gift of each other in our lives. It helps me not to take it for granted. When you start to do that, then you lose. Relationships are work, but they can be so much fun if you put the right amount of work into it.

Randy: It doesn’t feel like work. I’m happy being a part of this with Amy.

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Susie and Capice

September 13th, 2010

They’re inside a brandy snifter. That’s the first thing you probably notice. It was the 80s. Everyone has one of those photos, tucked away in some drawer – probably right next to their parachute pants.

Let’s move on to the real issue at hand: the people in that glass. How many of those love-tipsy couples in aperitif glasses do you think are actually together today? Probably not many.

But Susie and Capice are.

They just celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary. And that doesn’t even account for the fact that they’ve been together 31 years in total. That’s a lot of photos – and a lot of memories.

A lot of ups and downs, too. A lot of youthful indecision and differing viewpoints. But that just leaves room for the part after that – the part where they get to coast on the tail feathers of the very sturdy life they spent all those years quietly building.

But let’s get back to the glass. Those romantically intoxicated people in the picture. That was taken three years after they first met.

They both worked at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. She worked in the kitchen and he worked in radiology. When his sister introduced them one day, she developed a crush immediately. So she and her friend would spend their breaks trolling every floor to see if they might spot him. And when they did, they’d duck behind the wall so he wouldn’t notice.

But he noticed.

Soon, he would come down to the kitchen on his lunch breaks to visit Susie. Eventually, he got her number and, as she puts it, they started dating and never stopped.

They dated a year in high school, then broke up for a few months. They got back together, went to prom, and stuck it out through graduation. They moved in together when Susie was 19 (Capice was 8 months older), and at first it was fun to play house. Then reality set in, and they started having problems.

After about a year, they each moved back to their family homes. That’s when Susie found out she was pregnant.

“We broke up, and I was heartbroken,” Susie recalls. “I wanted to get back together, but he didn’t. When I gave up, he changed his mind.”

They moved back in together, and had their first daughter, Brittani. When she was three, they got married. They had their second daughter five-and-a-half years later. They’ve been together ever since, save for a two-week split just eight years ago.

“I didn’t want my kids growing up without their father,” says Susie. “We went to counseling and I tried to do everything I could to make our marriage work. So did he. We spent a lot of time with the kids. We’d go to movies and for bowling. We learned to appreciate one another. Right now, our relationship is better than it’s ever been. We’ve gone through trials and tribulations, and managed to conquer every downfall that came our way. It was really just a matter of how we chose to handle it.”

Together.

That’s what they chose.

It’s a choice to stay together and weather the storm. It’s also a choice to kiss the same person every day of your life, even when you’re too upset to want to. Susie says she prefers kisses above anger.

“We’ve always done this – for 31 years of our lives,” she giggles. “If a person is leaving, we kiss one another goodbye. When we wake up in the morning. When we go to the store, whenever. Even when he visits me at work, he gives me a kiss.”

It’s also about making sure you don’t give up on things, even when everything is going great. Relationships need lots of watering.

Capice knows about watering. Susie says he’s always surprising her. He buys her gifts. If she’s tired and doesn’t feel like cooking or cleaning, he’ll do it. He even makes her breakfast.

“That’s what love is,” he tells me. “If you care about someone, you do things for them. Not just buying gifts, but doing what you need to do to help them enjoy life.”

Even when things are rough? When you don’t really want to kiss them goodbye?

“Love is developed through trials and tribulations,” he adds. “If everything was rosy, you’d never grow. You have to grow with the love. You have to cultivate it and make it work – take some things sometimes you may not want to take. The reality is, nobody knows how to be in love. That’s something everyone has to work on in their own way. Real love is not about being selfish. It’s about not looking at yourself, but looking at the other person. And if the other person is doing the same thing, that’s when things grow.

“I didn’t know that when I was 16. No way in the world. It’s something I came to understand over the years. I made a lot of mistakes and I had to learn from them. I came to understand that if I do for her, it can come back to me, and that’s what has happened.”

Capice says Susie is very caring. He also thinks she’s thoughtful and funny.

“The longer we’ve been together, the more humorous she’s become,” he says. “She can keep you laughing all the time.”

Would he have ever imagined that the shy 16-year-old peeking from behind a wall would one day be his wife?

Of course not.

But that’s just what happened. Susie certainly didn’t know she was peeking into her future the day she met Capice, but she’s very glad she did.

And she’s glad neither one of them chose to give up when the view got a little obscured from time to time.

“I caught her a few times, peeking at me,” he laughs. “At the time, being young, it made me feel cool. After that, we started talking. That’s when everything started.”

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