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He stared at her, and then suddenly bent double.  This was a much worse pain than any so far.

She was helpless.  Nothing in the world could do to relieve it, except to get him into that hospital.  She clutched him to her, hardly noticing what she was doing, and smoothed his hair.  Edward, Edward, help me, her heart cried.  Edward where are you?  And like her son, in that moment, she felt despair settle so heavily on her and she was sure that her husband was no longer there to help her.

Suddenly the boy straightened up.  “All right, it’s gone. It wasn’t too bad,” he lied, and even managed a faint watery grin.  “Pack my bags then, and let’s go.”

She felt dizzy with relief.  Whether she had capitulated before the force of her arguments, or whether it was the chastising warning of that last pain, she couldn’t say.  She didn’t stop to think.

He watched her lug a case out from one of the cupboards and starts to put his things in, not so quickly or neatly as he had seen her pack for summer holidays, but she didn’t make bad speed.

“Shall I put some books in for you to read, Peter?  Which would you like to take?” and she ran her eye over the brilliant backs of the covers.  Adventure in the desert, the jungle, the town, and the country; adventures on the sea, below the sea, up mountains, in planes.  War books and animal adventures.  His world, from the escape from the safety and security of the room.

He surprised her again; cold, sharp, surprise settled on her.” I don’t want any.  I don’t want them anymore. Throw them out.  No, burn them-don’t give them away.  I don’t want other boys to-“

He broke off and turned his head away.

“But, Peter, you’ve always liked adventure books.”

“They’re not true.  There silly.  The only people who get killed in them are the “bads”-“goods” in those books all get through their adventure and come home and tell their families all about it.  My father wasn’t a “bad”.  But he didn’t come home.”

She finished the packing in silence and went done to phone the hospital and to tell her daily woman what was going on.  Mrs. Walters pointedly removed the cigarette from her mouth and dropped ash on the floor and just listened.

“In hospitable?  Poor little soul.”

“Don’t talk like that Mrs., Walters, he might hear you.  I’ve had such a trouble to persuade him, but he’s agreed to go quietly, and get it over with, and I think it’s the best thing.  He had a very bad pain this morning.”

Mrs. Walters clucked sympathetically and put the cigarette back in her mouth.  “Well. What I say is, I do admire you, and the you’re taking it, Mrs. Farley. If it were my boy, I’d be off with my head with worry, not knowing if I’d ever see him again…”

“Of course, I’ll see him again,” Claire said crossly, but it wasn’t any use arguing with Mrs. Walters.  She did keep the place clean, but she firmly believed that her ideas were right and everyone else was staggeringly wrong.  Claire left her and want upstairs to ready.

The Milkman came.  Peter went to the window and looked down.  He hadn’t gotten his horse anymore which Peter thought was a pity.  The milk float was a mistake.  It whirled miserably, and it was so slow that the other traffic on the road made all the usual noises of frustration until it could be overtaken.  No one likes the milk floats.

But it reminded Peter of the holidays when the milkman had brought his boy round to collect the empties.  The boy had been a year older than Peter, and had boasted about his visit to the hospital to have his verracus burnt off.  More pain than torture in the Middle Ages, the milkman’s boy had said firmly.  Peter decided that it might be a good idea to dust go down and have a word with the boy’s father just to check [without disbelieving his mother’s story, of course but she was the sort of pretty, distracted-looking young woman who often get things wrong.]  If that hospital was a Christmas hospital and whether it was likely that they’d have fun there, which he personally which he could never bring to believe.

He crept downstairs. The pain had eased up a lot. He didn’t waste time worrying about why it should do that, but began to plan his verbal opening.  The Milkman liked to joke and tease.  He would start off by getting in quickly.  “Hello, hello, hello, here’s a young gentleman with a posh speech on his tongue to make, I can tell at a glance!” the milkman was fond of saying when Peter was about, and it was irritating.  Peter knew he must start talking first.  Should he ask bluntly: “Is the Joseph and Mary really a

Christmas

Hospital?” but come to think of it sounded silly.  The Joseph and Mary began to carry weight on its own; the sound about it that is at once suggestive.  It might perhaps be better to find out if it was really called that, or if someone else told his mother the wrong thing.

The milkman was being quiet for once, Peter discovered.  Mrs. Walters was doing all the talking “Stood out against going into the hospital all this time he has, poor little devil, but his mother’s got him to agree at last.”

“Yes, well-“the milkman said, hoping to bring in the story about his boy and the verracus.

Mrs. Walter’s wasn’t going to have that.  “What I say is, shall we ever see him again?  Not a bad kid, that one.  I said as much to his mother.  If it was me, I said I’d be asking my self if he’d ever come out again.  Well I mean to say-hospitals are all alike.  Once they get you in, you never come out.  Look at my Perce-“

Pierce Walters was a tall thin, weedy man who came to do the odd jobs.  He had been by way of being a hero to Peter, because he had the bare minimum of tools which he treasured, and he kept them in a shabby old bag he carried as if it contained gold.  Out of the most unlikely bits of wood and rubbish, that no one else wanted, Mrs.’s Walter’s late Husband, had fashioned things, slowly with a care that had been born of waning energy, but the little boy hadn’t known this.  He hadn’t known that Percy Walters’ days had been numbered then. He only knew that he had liked him and that he had been persuaded to go into the hospital and had never came out.

He didn’t stop to hear of the other similar cases.

Mrs. Walters had known and was loudly citing for the milkman’s benefit, nor that would he have realized that they had been hopeless cases from the state.  He only knew that Mrs. Walters was saying roundly that he would never come back to this dear house again, never see his father when he came home…if his father ever came home.  And Mrs. Walters was speaking in that loud, confident, ringing tone of one who was sure of her facts.

He turned to go upstairs again, but the pain came on again and this time he went grey with it.  His Mother came down and at the same time heard the taxi pull up at the door.

“Are you ready, darling?  Do you think that you could help let you get ready?  We really ought to be getting going.”

He looked at her, his faced pinched and grey and somehow much older. “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”  He asked of her, and to her fevered imagination, it was the voice of Edward, lighter weight, of course, but the same tone, the same choice of words.

“Why do you say that darling?  I thought we agreed that it was for the best,” his Mother cried.  Her distress communicated itself to him and he believed he was lost, and that she knew he was lost, but there was nothing else she could do.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” he said and he let her help him.  Wrapped in a grim frozen silence borne of grief and despair, a quiet, nagging fear that was worse than the noisy terror of a normal frightened child.  Peter Farely allowed himself be conveyed to the Christmas Hospital.

“No darling, there are masses of people in hospital at Christmas time.  The wards are full as at other times.”

“They are?” He couldn’t believe it.  She smiled at him and pushed the slight advantage she had gained.

“Well, it stands to reason doesn’t it?  Pain just doesn’t wait until after Christmas to come on, now do they?  Pains don’t’ know what season of the year it is, and you’ll always find if there’s fun or a party, or an outing or something nice, you’ll have pains and can’t enjoy the thing.  Pains never sensibly appear when there’s nothing jolly to do.”

He agreed with that too, but looked around curiously shattered/ didn’t understand why.  She decided not to ask, but to push her position she had gained.

Well, for all the people who had been unfortunate enough to be caught in hospital over Christmas and for the sake of the nurses and doctors who had to stay there over Christmas to look after the sick people. They had a lot of fun and decorations and nice food, just the same as if you are at home.

“I don’t believe it!” he exploded

“It’s true.  Its stands to reason-they want their fun too-and it’s nicer, I should think to have Christmas with dozens of other people with you to enjoy it!”

“How can they enjoy it if they’re ill?” he pointed out after some thought “Not ill, exactly, but on the way to being better only not quite fit enough to go home, if you see what I mean.  And some hospitals have television people come and film them so people at home can see the fun their having.”

Peter really couldn’t accept that “Now I know you’re making it up.”

“But I’m not, darling, truly I’m not.  We had it on last year, now didn’t we, only you didn’t watch the screen, you were too engrossed in you  new train set.”

That was a mistake, referring to the year before.  His father had come home on a flying visit. and had been lying flat on his stomach on the floor with Peter, playing with the train set too.  Peter’s lips trembled, but he sternly bit on them and said, “Oh, that! I saw it, but I thought it was a sort of play got up in the studio, not real at all.”

“Oh, Peter,” she said helplessly.  Other mothers didn’t seem to have this trouble.  The Jones children down the road had all been in hospital to have tonsils removed, and the young Marhams, one of whom was Peter’s age, had made no fuss at all when one had been run over and had a broken leg, and the other two had fallen out of a tree and had concussion and cracked ribs.  Their mothers had just phoned ambulances or called the doctor, and briskly gathered things together in cases in off they were bundled, and no questions asked.  But Peter had always seemed different.  A dreamer, not a boy to climb trees or get run over.  A boy who thought and planned, rather than blundered in and out of trouble.  A boy who preferred to read adventure books and dream of the time when he would go to the

Middle East like his father and work with the oil wells.

“I won’t go.” Peter said suddenly, in a rather frightingly final tone.  “Well, anyway, I won’t go for one week, until we give father a chance to come home.  Then we’ll see.”

She gasped.  “No Peter we can’t wait that long-“It was blurted out before she realized it.  All she could see was the grave face of the doctor at the Mary and Doctor Threadingham Memorial Hospital.  A big hospital, with a fine staff, but quite clearly they hadn’t liked this case and they wanted the boy in at once, before matters got any worse.

Peter misconstrued.  He stood up, still bent a little, and not removing one arm from his tummy.  “It’s like I thought.  You really don’t expect my father to come home, do you? Not ever.  I expect they know he’s dead already,” and his face puckered…

He turned sharply away.  She felt he had cut at her with a knife.  She took the blow, steadying herself, and then returned to the attack, because she must do this.  She was all alone now, and Edward would expect her to do it; reasonably, not clumsily and easily. He would expect her to put it to the boy so that he would go willingly and cheerfully, not just throw his things into a case and bundle him into a taxi ignoring the frozen grief and fear that would render him incapable of protesting even if he wanted to.  Edward had had a lot to say about the way some parents take their children to the new strange world of hospital.

She tried again.  “Darling, don’t say such things.  Listen, I love him you too, you know.  He belongs to me as well you.  He’s so dear to me-“

“Then why did you let him go out to that old desert to get lost and shot at when you knew all the time that there was fighting going on near?  I didn’t know there was fighting.  Nobody told me, or else or I’ve asked him not to go.  We’re not so hard up, are we, that father has to go to that place to earn his living?”

It was the worst reproach of all.  Hadn’t she begged Edward to apply to stay in

London at the main office until the trouble died down?  And hadn’t Edward just looked at her, and before saying quietly, “You know I can’t do that, Claire! His look had reproached her for putting to him the coward’s way out.

“People have to go to places like that dear, It wouldn’t do if everyone to stay home just there was a bit a trouble-we can’t run and hide until the nasty things stop, now can we?” He went to the bunks and sat done on the edge of the bottom one, thinking.  She flayed herself into saying some more.” Darling, I promise you it will be all right.  I’ll come and visit you every day-the mother’s do you know.  And the minute I hear from Daddy or about him, I’ll let you know.  If I can’t come at that moment to tell you, I’ll telephone the ward and the sister will come and give you the news,”

“She will?”  He couldn’t believe that.  “Why?”

“Because she’s kind, they’re all kind up on the wards.  Its fun, you’ll love it.”

“I didn’t see anyone kind when I went to the hospital to be poked and prodded by those men in white coats.  No fun, either.”

“That was only outpatients, darling.  They’re very busy and they have to get through their work in time to close the clinic for the day, but on the wards where people lie in beds and eat nice food and have fun, there’s plenty of time.  She swallowed.  “At this very minute, they’re all very hard at working making decorations to put up.  Did you know that?  And the night nurses put presents on everyone’s bed at Christmas time, and they have shows and lovely food-“

“They do?” He was still suspicious.

“Darling, actually it’s a proper Christmas hospital,” she said, making her last effort and deciding that if she must diverge from the truth it had better be a fine and splendid divergence, and completely convincing.  “Well look at the name of the place-that should prove it.  Do you know what they call it? 

The Joseph and

Mary

Hospital.  There, now!”

God chose Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and take them to the promised-land. Moses’ life was not without its failures, though, he couldn’t trust enough that God wouldn’t lead them astray and instead of asking God for directions chose to wander around in the desert for 40 years.

At this point we have found through the millenniums that nothing much has changed. All men would rather wander lost in the wilderness than having the appearance of being weak and stopping to ask for directions.”

Men are notorious for not asking for help, especially when it comes to asking for directions. They’d much rather travel miles and miles, trying to figure it out on their own, rather than admitting they are lost. This is one of the biggest complaints women make against men, as Deborah Tannen points out in her book, “You Just Don’t Understand” (Morrow, 1990).

Perhaps childhood conditioning has something to do with this tendency. Most often, little boys are taught to be independent and not act like sissies or babies by constantly requesting help. Even though this appears to be a “manly” thing to do, in reality, it is not. If a man needs help or assistance, he needs to ask for it.

If women understand that this merely is one of the “sex differences” in communication, they can help their mate to realize it is okay to ask for help. Instead of arguing, you can say instead, “I know you’d like to figure this out on your own and that you probably have a good sense of direction, but I would prefer if we could stop and ask someone for directions.”

An alternative to this is asking for a “pit stop” to use the rest room and then asking for directions. Once you have them you can advice your spouse that they pretty much had things worked out according to the gentleman in the store.

By saying one of these you are allowing the man to “save face,” as you are now talking his language. In essence, you are allowing him to help you by honoring your feelings of discomfort about the matter.

Fifty years of marriage – where have the years gone? However, four children, seventeen grandchildren and four… well almost five-great-grandchildren later, I can see where they’ve gone. When our parents were married for fifty years, they seemed so old. Why do I still feel young?

We were married during the big war, a four-day honeymoon and then separation for two years. Even though Peter and I went to high school together, we didn’t really know each other. We exchanged ideas about what we wanted to do with our lives together through the letters we wrote while we were apart.

After the war, times were hard financially. A daughter was born after two years, followed by a son three years later, and twins 2 years after that. My parents died when I was young and we lived with my in-laws for a while. Theirs was the most beautiful marriage and a perfect model for us. They never exchanged a sharp word with each other-not in front of us, anyway.

Our lives have been filled with love for each other and for our children. We’ve tried by example to instill in them respect for each other, service to the community, and the necessity of charity. We both worked hard, and now, in our golden years, we’re retired and enjoying the fruits of our labor. We try never to go to sleep angry with each other and always to say, “I love you.”

I really believe we’ve had a fabulous fifty years of wedded bliss. Some downs, mostly ups, and even in our days of deepest and darkness despair we have the deepest respect for each other and, to my knowledge, have never, ever lied, deceived, or tried to cover up anything from each other.

We struggled through some lean years, not having any substantial finances behind us, but we loved playing house with our great family. Our four children are precious to us, different in so many ways that people wonder if they came from the same womb. But we love them equally.

My having a small business that I conducted from our home gave us the unusual opportunity to see a lot of each other, something not too many couples can enjoy. For us, with our similar likes and dislikes, it gave us the opportunity to discuss anything and everything – minor details that came to mind, we discussed right then and there. It really wasn’t too much togetherness. On the contrary, it worked out great. When I retired finally, not long ago, we were so used to my being around that it was natural to spend time together without getting in each other’s way. It was a mere continuation of a wonderful relationship.

So as a husband who’s proud of his fifty years of marriage and hopes for many more, I believe that what contributes to our success is that we always talk out minor problems and differences that arise between us before they fester and get bigger. We hug each other often. It’s good for our souls. We’re considerate of each other and give in once in a while, even when giving in isn’t what we’d like to do.

The essence of a successful marriage over time is the ability to share power. This requires that power be present on both sides, because if all the power belongs to one person, sharing is not really possible. Sharing power, then, requires planning. Each spouse must do what is necessary to obtain some power and then must be willing to share it.

Even if you are lucky enough to have a lasting, loving feeling, your marriage can fail if your lives are not arranged so each spouse has the maximum chance to respect the other and forgive their inevitable selfish behavior. When both spouses are allowed to make substantial contributions to the relationship, they have concrete reasons to respect, give space to, and forgive each other for their shortcomings.

I am not sure what really goes on in the development of today’s relationships between men and women, but thirty or forty years ago relationships were often one-sided and it required some vision of the future to provide for power sharing. The man made a living. The woman made a life. If the man was the center of the relationship in marriage, as was the custom and the woman’s role was to make the home, then her status and power in the relationship were precarious.

If the personalities were such that the husband was dependent upon the wife emotionally, or if she was smarter or more stable than he, then sharing power was more easily accomplished. Each needed the other and as long as nothing happened to disturb the relationship, a successful marriage was possible. However, if there was a glitch, the marriage collapsed because the man really had all the power and the wife’s power existed only as long as her husband valued her. She had no real power of her own. If her importance to him changed, the relationship changed. This subtle pressure on the wife tended to make her insecure because she constantly worried whether or not she was necessary.

In my marriage, the traditional way was not a reasonable way to proceed, for several reasons. I am too independent to rely on anyone very much and my wife is too insecure to be in such a tenuous power position and too talented to play a secondary role. Fortunately, we worked out a better arrangement than the one in general use thirty years ago.

I married, in my early twenties, a beautiful and intelligent twenty-year-old. She was the best person I had ever met, and so I married her, even though it was not a good time for us to do so. She was much too young. She had no real plans for her life. I was not really mature. Our relationship was full of love but there was little else to it. I was an intern and she was still in college. Life was not easy, especially for her. I knew the time would come when it would not be enough to be beautiful and in love. She needed to have a life separate from mine so she would value herself separately from us as a couple and I would value her as a person separate from myself. We worked this out together, although we never actually spoke of it in these terms. Later in my life, I encouraged my children to be independent. I wanted them to understand that women – particularly women -need to develop independent strengths apart from their husbands, in order to keep their own and their husbands’ respect over time.

When our children were teenagers, my wife went back to school and then studied medicine and became an internist. The process was difficult and required sacrifices on all sides, but over time, it worked. She has been practicing for several years.

There is no doubt that her career has fortified her.

She has a much stronger self-image, higher self-esteem, and is more independent. She is happier than she has ever been. I see her as my colleague and equal in ways I did not years ago, and I respect and value her differently. We have more of a partnership, our marriage is stronger and more stable, and in many ways her added power and value make her more important and powerful to me as well. But it is harder to actually live life this way. Things are hard to arrange day by day, details are inconvenient.

The theoretical disadvantages of a two-powerful person relationship actually become real in the end. It takes some getting used to.

We take our usual walk this morning, although when I wake up I don’t want to move. The dry desert winds stir up my allergies and I feel listless, out of sorts. Staring at my red-rimmed eyes and dry, grooved face as I brush my teeth doesn’t help the mood. My hair, standing on end, refuses to be brushed into obedience.

Worse, my knees hurt. I feel like the Tin Woodman in The Wizard of Oz that needed a shot of lubricating oil to get going. The connection of knees – father in wheelchair flashes unhappily in my mind. This was how he lost his independence. He couldn’t rely on his knees to walk or drive safely.

“I’m not my father,” I say to myself firmly. And more softly, tears just back of my eyes, “Oh, how I miss you, Dad.”

“Let’s go, darling!” my husband’s bright, cheery voice booms from the other room. He speaks loudly, to be heard over the morning news program. I want to go back to bed in silence.

David never takes silence for an answer. Knowing me well, he appears in the bedroom doorway to see if I’m dressed and over my rebellion. He resembles an overgrown boy in his turquoise whale sweatshirt (how could I ever have bought it?), bright red pants, mismatched socks, and run-down running shoes. “You’ll feel much better once you get going,” he says and kisses me.

His kisses always work magic, even when they’re illogically timed.

“Okay,” I mumble, giving in quickly, knowing he’s right.

At our front door we turn left into the ocean breeze, lured by a view of the sea at the end of the street. We pass some teenagers hurrying to get to school in time for their first classes. Pete stops suddenly, grabs my hands, and kisses me. We both giggle. I imagine that any student who sees us thinks we’re absurd-two antique creatures in baggy sweats in an embrace.

I feel lucky and blessed and embarrassed, all at once, ready to walk the earth with this man who rarely fails to delight me. Ready to do anything not to have my body go out on me, like the old woman we saw yesterday, frail and dried as an old leaf, clinging to a building for support, stopping for rest before she went on. He’s right. I need the exercise to get my mental and physical kinks out.

We walk to the park bordering the beach, lost in our own thoughts. “See you at

Willow Street

,” he says and begins to jog slowly, still-muscular legs as sturdy as ever, belly an unwelcome, perhaps permanent, visitor.

All the things I wanted to change in him now seem curiously appealing-his passion for golf, his sloppy habits, and his invariable optimism. Golf gives him exercise, friendship, and fresh air and helps him slug back at business frustration, and I’d rather pick up after him than have him be a nitpicker, railing at me for being sporadically messy. I know he’ll never change. I don’t want him to anymore. We are what we are, and somehow my occasional pessimism and his optimism are the perfect dancers, bridging the changing rhythms of life. And he’s more thoughtful than ever, in all the important ways.

Where did all the-years go? Gone, leaving us photographs on the family wall and a residue of the silver stardust that is love.

We meet again at
Willow, our favorite street. “Do you still want a home here?” he asks, as though we aren’t backed to the wall financially, as though we aren’t in debt, as though the recession never happened.

“No,” I answer, as if the choice is real. “I don’t want a house anymore. I feel more secure in our condo because I’m not afraid to be alone when you’re out of town. It’s just right for the two of us.”

“We could get a dog again,” he smiles. “A big Saint Bernard, just like Reggie.” I think of the rainy night in 1979, when I could no longer deny that our marriage was in deep trouble. We were lying on the den floor in our tract home, Reggie happily curled between us. A soft porn movie came on and he petted the dog languidly, never thinking of reaching out for me. I remember the ache of being unwanted, of getting up silently and going to bed without washing my face, pretending I was asleep when he came in. When I’m upset, I don’t pretend anymore. I talk about it. I don’t have the patience to wait. I’ve learned that much. The more honest I am, the less seems to come up.

The street slopes imperceptibly uphill, but my lungs want more air than I can take in and I fall behind his brisk pace. He turns, missing me.

“I’m not too speedy this morning,” I pant. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

“No. I don’t ever want to leave you behind,” he says and slows to take my hand and kiss me tenderly.

Memory wants to accuse him: “But you did leave me! You did! Don’t you remember? Can you block out everything?” Why can’t I do this? It would make life so much easier.

I stop the downward spiral of the blame game. That stage is over. I have nothing to worry about now but time. We’re here for each other in a way we never were before, when we glossed over our differences to preserve the image of the perfect marriage. Here we are, wrinkles, bellies, and all, laughing more than ever at the foibles we no longer try to change.

I reach up like a young bride to touch his face, the curve of his cheek, and tilt my face to kiss him. I think I’d rather be here, right now, right this moment, feeling this way, than be young again with perfect knees. I laugh at the unspoken joy that bubbles up, and he looks at me and says appreciatively, “Does any couple laugh as much as we do?” He slides his right hand under the band of my sweatpants, grabbing my behind, knowing I never wear underpants on our walks for exactly this moment.

“No couple I know,” I respond. “My behind is getting so much smaller” We both laugh again at my forty-year battle with a flabby butt.

“I can hardly find it,” he says, so sincere I almost believe him.

We walk on, a little slower now. His thoughts, I can tell, are on business.

Mine linger on children, grandchildren, and marriage. How many marriages are stronger after a separation? Ours is. Eleven years ago we parted, at his request. He had fallen in love with a younger woman, an employee. We were apart for a year and a half, and I thought I’d never recover from the pain and the anger and the loss of him, but I did. I learned to appreciate myself when I didn’t have him to please. Best lesson I ever learned.

So it has come to this: Noticing thoughts fly through my mind like a flock of birds. I choose this one and that, not feeling their prisoner-most of the time. Noticing we’re in the fall of our lives, amazed that spring and summer have gone… wondering when winter will come.