by Lee Gomer
December 2000
It was Saturday night, 9:00 p.m. Gloria and I were sitting in the living room, enthralled by Perry Como and his “Some Enchanted Evening.”
As that perfect voice enchanted our evening, made the air throb with feeling, as his voice rang through the room, fairly shaking the walls, our minds turned back in time. And as he sang that wonderful line, “When you find your true love,” . . .
I was standing beside a bicycle, Gloria in my arms, our lips bruisingly together, finding our true love. That’s where my mind fled to, I’m only assuming Gloria’s did. We were new together. We had been very formal, hardly touching until then.
We had just had an evening of tennis, finding each other, riding Gloria home on her bicycle, and stopping along the way to kiss. There along the side of the road on Palm Avenue, I found my true love!
Did we live happily ever after? No, that only happens in fairy tales. But we’ve had a good life for 58 years.
We’ve had some tragedies and triumphs, failures and successes, heartaches and happiness. And we’ve had our share of arguments. Arguments where the object of both was to say the most damaging remarks, remarks that would absolutely and certainly destroy the other. Deliver a barb that would really kill the spirit. But somehow the underlying love that still endures comes back to life in just a matter of minutes; and I feel so bad, so sorry for having cast those horrible, unnecessary, foolish barbs, that I begin to think of how I can heal the wounds they may have inflicted. (I can only hope that she felt the same after each crucifixion.)
There is so much to learn about a true love. Though it cannot be explained, somehow two people with few mutual interests, brought up in two entirely different lifestyles, accustomed to entirely different eating, treating, believing, or living can somehow move together and become a household.
And now, after 58 years, we have grown old together. Throughout the relationship, much patience has been necessary and has been exercised. So much patience. And now that we’ve aged, our feelings grow so much closer to the surface, tolerance grows thinner, and more patience is necessary than before – and patience is not an attribute of old age. But somehow that tried-and-true true love comes to the rescue.
Let us place a tape of “Some Enchanted Evening” on the player. Let’s drift back again to that magic moment. Let’s live it all again!
The more of these I read, the more I think Granny would appreciate them, maybe read out loud to her. Particularly this one, spilling over the way it is with his romantic love for her.
ReplyDeleteI volunteer to do that when we visit Granny next, likely in Feb.
Is this a great one? His writing is always warm and loving, but always spiced with that honesty that was the cornerstone of his character. It also makes me chuckle, especially how he really stresses the patience needed for marriage. During my wedding video, Tara went around to guests asking what advice they had for the couple. Gramps' advice (and I quote): "Patience. Beeee very patient, beeee very forgiving." Loved those long "be"s with the accompanying eye-rolls!
And how correct that advice proved to be...!