The forty-something couple was in Washington DC on broadcasting business. As usual, they stayed at the Burlington Hotel.
One day as they walked along a Washington street a photographer's lens zoomed in and clicked on them.
The photo showed a good-looking couple walking in easy stride together. He wore a Panama hat of the style popular then, and his smiling face was turned downward.
Her skirt and jacket showed a slim figure and a face framed by short, dark curls. She was smiling in his direction. One could imagine that she was saying something that pleased him.
Perhaps, for a moment, she was trying to take his mind off radio station troubles. The photo could not communicate that the couple had no hobbies and few interests in common.
She loved the beach; he could not stand it. She loved to travel; he mostly endured it. When he traveled for work, he loved to fly. She would never get on a plane.
He relaxed by fishing; she limited fish to the kitchen oven or frying pan.
He loved radio engineering, and once she suspected his desire to install a ham radio system at home. "You're working with radio all the time as it is; I draw the line on ham radio!"
It was one of few lines that she ever drew that held.
She loved literature, church and community groups, and playing bridge; he loved working a slide rule--a "slipstick," or a version of an analog computer used by engineers in those days; he liked word games, but had been brought up to think card playing was wrong--although he did play a popular card game a few times.
He wanted only "meat and potatoes" on the table at dinner; she loved to cook a lot of different things at home.
She thought practical jokes amusing, but hated it when he played them on her.
He wanted their only daughter to have a job when she was sixteen; she preferred their last child to enjoy school and friends. "She will have enough work when she gets married and has children," she told him. He won, for a while.
There are rare photos of the couple at church together. For many years, she went alone or with one of the children every Sunday; he went, too...often late enough to slide into a back row with little disturbance when he left as soon as the service ended.
No one ever heard either of them say a curse word, make an ethnic slur or joke, or tell a sexually explicit story. They hated prejudice, and worked and lived against it in their quiet, steady ways.
After his sudden death one Sunday evening after church, people from all over the state called or wrote to tell the family how much the couple had meant to them. They told stories of how each one, in one way or another, had listened, cared, and helped or offered friendship.
The couple's life album together, as far as their children could see, would show only a few things in common over sixty-four years of marriage. Yet, what they did have in common were among the most important things.
They loved each other and their children. They kept their commitment to love and honor each other to the end, even when disagreeing, which they often did. Their lives, often hard since childhood, were lived by faith, loyalty, and good humor.
They aimed to respect others; they made an effort to be good to their neighbors. They made sure their parents were cared for.
How do you take a picture of that?
Or, how do you capture perfectly that they never cared overmuch for material things; that they enjoyed people from all kinds of backgrounds and circumstances; that they prayed for their children?
No one can adequately record that neither of them said or implied "I told you so."
They loved to laugh, yet hardly stayed still long enough to click on that. It was fun, though, and like a a safety valve. Also, each could introduce a wry comment at just the right time on politics, religion, or personality quirks. Both hated pretense or self-importance, and would find a funny way to express their feelings. Never harsh, but always on point.
He left the earth, and she followed years later.
Individually and together two unique people make, shape, flavor, enliven, and keep such a life together. I enjoy a warm glow when I click on memories of the special focus I enjoyed...of my parents.
"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."
---Psalm 116:5
Adapted from "A Working Marriage," in Not All Roads Lead Home , (c)2004 Jane Bullard
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