43/50 of the 50th: Receiving Line

I love Mom Mavis’s face as she reaches for the hand of this young girl.  Mike’s maternal grandfather, Pa Fred, is between Mom Mavis and me.  He lost sight in one eye in a oil field accident when he was a fairly young father.  By the time of this photo, his hearing was nearly non existence.  So pleased that Mom Mavis brought him to “Mikie’s Wedding.”

We both are unsure of the identity of the male guest talking to Mike.  It might be my Uncle Glen but it really looks more like our high school band director, Jim Swiggart.  High School band was significant in our lives.  Mike and I first met during summer rehearsals for marching band prior to his first school year in my hometown.  Mr. Swiggart’s first year in Blackwell Public Schools was my sophomore year, my second year in the instrumental music program.

Jim Swiggart was a positive influence in our lives.  I was thankful to be trusted to babysit for his two children.  His wife’s sorority chose me as the recipient of their service project of outfitting a girl for college.  He chose Mike as the senior drum major in his senior year of high school.  We could always look to him for sound advice.

Extra-curricular teachers and coaches have more contact with students and therefore more possibility to model leadership and responsible adulthood.  Jim was a master teacher; he challenged us to his high expectations yet retained a sense of fun.  He has spent his life and energies teaching and encouraging a love for music and for making music.  He is the General Director Emeritus of Opera in the Ozarks.   He is still accessible to his students and followers through Facebook.  He has attended several Blackwell High School class reunions.  He has continued to guide, share, and make a positive impact on others.

He was and remains a man of high integrity.  We greatly value his friendship.

Ponderables:  “Love is a friendship set to music.”  –  E. Joseph Cossman

42/50 of the 50th: Parents

Mavis Imogene Brashear Morriss Ewing, Andrea Kay Witt Morriss, Michael Ross Morriss, Faye Marcine Willis Witt, and Andrew Johnson Witt

 

In the last of the color photos, we are bookended by our parents in the traditional wedding photo arrangement of his family beside the bride and her family beside the groom.  Mom Mavis is without a husband; Mike’s dad died when Mike was 12.  She had divorced his step-dad the year before our wedding.

 

Today, looking at the faces, I see behind the smiles.

Mom Mavis’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes.  We knew that I did not meet her standards for her only child.  I was not beautiful nor wealthy besides being “too obedient to my parents.” according to her.  But she did accept Mike’s choice and chose to love me, as I did her.

In this photo, my eyes are smiling more than my mouth indicates.  I was simply happy.

This is Mike’s usual smile.  I do not recall him ever holding a fake smile.  His eyes would have given it away if he had.  I know that he was like me, happy to be married so that we could finally be together.

My Mom looks a millisecond from sobbing.  She was thoroughly happy about this wedding but weary from her worries about the wedding preparations and financial impact.

On the other bookend is my dad whose body language shouts pride along with merriment.  He always liked Mike best.  If I went out with other guys in high school, my Dad would always ask, “What about Mike?”.  My dad maintained that devotion of love and pride about Mike throughout his lifetime (as have I).  He called him Mikus.

Now we have only memories, stories, and photographs of our parents.

Our Dad A.J. died in October 2005. Age 80.

Our Mom Marcine died in February 2014.  Age 87.

Our Mom Mavis died in December 2017.  Age 97.

We remain bookended by love.

Ponderables:  “The most beautiful thing in the world is to see your parents smiling, and knowing you’re the reason behind that smile.” – quote on plaque.

Day 41/50 of the 50th: Just the Two of Us

Live flowers have always been important to me even when I could manage only dandelions and clover.  Our small town florist created my vision of a simple white bouquet graced with a delight of daisies cascading on streamers.  

All the attendants, the family, and the guests celebrated and loved us as we began this passage into marriage. We arrived at this moment through a serpentine tangle and entangling of a myriad of lives.  But from this moment on, we began making our own twine of people and circumstances and events.  Just the two of us.  For 50 years and beyond our intertwined lives reflect our choices, actions, and reactions woven around a core of mutual fathomless love and respect.

Ponderables: “A dream you dream alone is just a dream.  A dream you dream together is reality.” – John Lennon

40/50 of the 50th: Cake Ritual

I had it my mind, probably from old black & white movies, that the bride’s hair should be up.  My waist-length hair piled on top of my head was the result of my first visit to a beauty shop.  Unfortunately, my mom took me to a stylist for older women.  My bridesmaid Pat reshaped it as best she could.  And it all came down in the car ride to our evening’s Tulsa destination.  Mike didn’t like it either.

I believe this was the moment Mike realized that he was trying to feed me a larger portion than he or I had expected.  Previously, we had quickly settled on a No Face Cake Smash.  Neither of us enjoyed watching that at weddings.  Others might see it as fun and funny.  Or the groom’s revenge after endless one-sided discussions on wedding details.  Or the bride’s public assertion of Game On.  It’s their wedding and their choice.  According to one source, the romantic tradition of feeding cake to each other is “a symbol of commitment to provide for one another as well as a celebration of the couple’s new shared life.”   For me it was both a symbol and an act of trust between us; we agreed to politely share cake.  And we did.

Of course we did.

Ponderables: 

“And I knew our joy
Would fill the earth
And last, til the end of time
My Love”

–  “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” a 1957 folk song written by British political singer/songwriter Ewan MacColl; Grammy Awards for Record and Song of the Year for singer Roberta Flack; Billboard No. 1 song 1972.

 

 

39/50 of the 50th: Wedding Ensemble

We had a bounty of beautiful friends enriching our exchange of vows.  I’m sure by etiquette and tradition we had chosen too many for a simple chapel wedding.  We neither sought or had advice on the appropriate number.  Through letters and a few phone calls, we supported each other’s choices, and let Mike’s mom Mavis choose the young candle lighters.

We almost stretched from door to door across the Chapel of my Aunt Mary Ann’s church.

From the left:  First row: Candle Lighters Nancy Ewing (Mike’s former stepdad’s niece, Purcell, OK) and Merri Beth Smith (Mavis’s friend’s daughter who lived with Mavis for a couple of years).  Bridesmaids Marva Lindsey (my University of Oklahoma friend, Porter, OK,), Suzanne Frohock (my junior high/high school friend, Blackwell, OK). Pat Houston (my OU roommate, Comanche, OK).  Flowergirl: Terri Witt (my 6 year old sister).  Groomsmen: Milo Davis (Mike’s high pal, Blackwell, OK), Rick Ewing (Mike’s friend and cousin via his former stepdad Webber Ewing, Purcell, OK), Nolie Ewing (Rick’s older brother and my transportation from Mavis’s home in Purcell to my freshman second semester at OU).  Ushers: Euel Henry (Mike’s high school buddy) and Stan Murphy (Mike’s friend from his freshman first semester at Phillips University, Enid).

Second row: Vocal Soloist Steve Scott (Mike’s Phillps friend, Waurika, OK), Matron of Honor Jan Davis (my hometown encourager, married to Mike’s high school pal Milo), the bride (who never has liked being the center of attention), the groom (who is who he is wherever he is), Best Man Jim Sheffer (Mike’s P. U. [Phillps University] roommate, Judsonia, AR).

Top row:  Rev. Bill Masters,  First Christian Church, D.O.C., Ponca City, OK.

The synergy of these loving, lovable, lovely companions honored and blessed us.

Ponderables:  “Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale.” – author unknown

38/50 of the 50th: Wedding Photos!

 

My mom made the cake,  adorned with white roses (roses were her favorite flower; mine were daisies) purchased from a home-based cake decorator.  She sat it proudly on her mother’s glass plate that I now have and use.  I have seen many heart-stoppingly gorgeous wedding cake, even made a couple of special ones, but I am sure this cake had the most love (and worriment). 

During my sorting and purging time yesterday, I unearthed our wedding book made by Mike’s mom Mavis.  It holds all the wedding photos we have.  Not many.  Mostly black & white 8×10 prints.  This photo is one of the 8 that Mike scanned in for me late last night.  I chose to begin with this one for two reasons: it is the one that we used in the newspaper account, and it is the only one that I love how both of us look.  Mike was born photogenic; I am still waiting to acquire that status. This young woman looks so sweet and lovely that I do not recognize her.  But I do recognize that on the biggest “dress-up” day of her life so far, the nails are not polished.  That is so me.  I tediously hand-cut the lace motifs that I hand-stitched on the sleeves, skirt and train, but the only embellishment on my hands were the wedding ring set.

I also chose this photo because I can see the “something old” bracelet shining through the sleeve of my right wrist.  It was made from a necklace my maternal great-grandmother wore at her wedding.  While changing into my “going-away” dress before we escaped to begin our life, I lost in the bride’s dressing room.   Only I didn’t.  I found it in my mom’s jewelry box after she died in 2014.  I suppose it was returned to my mom or my aunt (it was her church), and mom forgot to tell me despite my asking if it were found.  OR my mom found it in her over-stuffed purse when she switched to a new purse in the autumn/winter and forgot to tell me.  It was not an expensive heirloom but it was precious to me.

Ponderables: ” They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.”   – F. Scott Fitzgerald

36/50 of 50: Passersby; Dear Then Gone

I captured this serious moment in make-believe years ago during an outdoor graduation ceremony for State University of New York at Stony Brook.  The male children are our two sons; the girl child is the daughter of the friend who was graduating.  It is she who continues to startle  me with her haunting allure.  A snapshot in time can conjure a myriad of stories.

In our days of being a military family, time in one location was limited.  We knew to find kindred spirits quickly.  When Mike was at his last station, we rented a house in a fairly modern, Charleston, SC neighborhood.  I cannot recall if we or the family of one of the submarine sonar gang moved in first.  The important part is how much we gained by living across the street from each other, especially we women when the guys were out to sea.  The civilian neighbors already had their circle of friends who shared their Southern traditions and attitudes.  They made room to be polite but not room for genuine connections.

Mike and I were rather awash in the sea of Southern social style.  We share an independence from group-think and an authenticity incompatible with graciousness as merely a habit.  My mind rankled and reeled from having to consider if communcations with neighbors were hospitable or the ingrained game generationally mirrored.  I was silenced in the need for simple, straight forward community.  Therefore it was a windfall to have the Kuhns across the subdivision street.  In those South Carolina days, we basked in the geographical and emotional proximity of kinship.

Unfortunately, distance and different life paths created barriers to continuing our trusted closeness.  The sadness of that was conquered by remembering the congenial connection when our lives simultaneously paused before passing.

Ponderables: “It not where you go but who you meet along the way.” – words on poster

 

35/50 of 50 days: Friends

RiverRoom Closet Door #1, unfinished but hung.  Uncovered window seat cushion.  By Thanksgiving, both will be a little more finished.  [I’m sure our professional cabinet maker neighbor, who used his expensive automatic Euro-hinge drilling machine on the door panels, shook his head at the 12 degree angled opening of our doors but he had no comment.]

Quite a long spell without blogging.  Due to trying to ameliorate the financial and healthcare muddle of a family member, Life has been too tedious to have positive energy to write reflections and musings or to create associative photographic illustrations.

Writing isn’t easy for me.  I cannot just jot down a small paragraph or so.  The pre-writing, the self-censoring, and the post-editing are mind and time consuming.  “What will I share on my blog tonight?” runs like a rain-swollen stream until released in a flood of keyboard clicks.

Now is not a favorable time to continue sharing about 50 years of marriage memories since we are in our yearly construction battle between the RiverRoom and the deadline of hosting Thanksgiving.   But I am.  Friends were my tipping point.

 

Throughout the time of blogging silence, I have had voices of encouragement to continue.  Sometimes the “miss your blog” voices were from friends face-to-face.  Sometimes it was a mention from Facebook friends.  Recently, almost evenly spaced, three urging voices pushed me over my barrier.  Those amiable voices added to my own voice urging me to continue what I had begun.  Ah, what would life be without friends who encourage.

We have had a wealth of friends throughout our communal life.  From Mike’s submarine days, we still have two sets of couples  with whom we enjoy at least yearly contact.  Currently, we have trusted friends, chosen family, with whom we share adventures and discouragements.  The one friend that I have held close from even before this 50 year journey is my veritable best friend.  Mike.

Ponderables:  “Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you; spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” -Amy Poehler