String of pearls

Two wedding receptions, exactly 30 years apart. On the left, November of 1991, before we were even married; on the right, November 2021 at the wedding of a family friend. I look at the left picture and I think, “Who are those people?” I look on the right and I know exactly who they are: Blessed, fortunate and lucky. Here’s what I wrote about that recently in the Webster-Kirkwood Times. Happy anniversary Tom, and cheers to 30 years of perfect imperfections!

String of pearls

At some point this month, there’ll be a celebration dinner, a clink of glasses, an exchange of I-love-you’s, and then Tom and I will both wonder aloud how the 8-week-old puppy is doing at home by herself.

And that’s how we’ll celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. Thirty years? Wow, that went fast. Thirty Junes have come and gone since that trip down the rather long aisle of St. Sabina Catholic Church in Florissant, giving me more time than I anticipated to think about what I was getting myself into. The answer, of course, is that I had no idea.

Does anyone who enters a longterm relationship? Thirty years and a lifetime ago — and here I sit in the same house we moved into in 1992, the one that once had a rotary phone on the kitchen wall, a VCR player in the family room and a Dodge Shadow in the driveway. 

I’m sure we’ll talk about 30 years, eight cars, three jobs, two amazing sons and Daisy, our second dog. She’s the reason there won’t be any exotic trips or expensive jewelry this summer — certainly no pearls, the traditional wedding gift for 30 years. Besides, I already have a set of pearl earrings, plus a string of the real things passed down from my grandmother. But pearls are spot on for celebrating 30 years.

Why? Pearls are perfect imperfections — a gem that starts out as a speck of dirt or as some sort of small impediment in an oyster, mussel or clam, an “irritant,” as the definition reads. And then what? The oyster or clam deals with it and smooths it over layer by layer, year by year, until one day it becomes something lustrous and beautiful.

Beauty born of irritation? That sounds about as good a definition of marriage as anything.

Sappy, I know, but it’s been 30 years. God knows there have been plenty of irritants on both sides, beginning that first year with the restacking of the dishwasher, the refolding of towels, the higher tolerance for clutter, the short needle vs. long needle debate at Christmas. Little stuff, really. Irritants and idiosyncrasies.

But on top of all that, 30 years of kindnesses, layered in moments big and small. For me, things like always making sure the snow is off the car in winter and being meticulous about the lawn in summer. The late night trips to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled or driving 18 hours from North Carolina’s Outer Banks so our oldest could play in the city-county baseball championship. The occasional bouquet of flowers, just because.

The nicknames, the quips and the jokes that make me laugh; the letting me sleep in when the puppy needs to get up at 3 a.m. Being the calm in the storm and staying cool in a crisis; a solid, steady presence for 30 years now, all layers upon layers that have smoothed over tiny irritants. Enough for a string of pearls.