When my parents married fifty years ago, no one could have predicted the course of their lives together. Life has a way of taking us to unexpected places but now, 50 years later, I was tasked by my sisters, to offer a toast to the couple. I am uniquely qualified as one of the only handful of beings who attended their wedding when they eloped to be married in High Prairie 50 years ago on a snowy day much like today. I was yet to make my very premature appearance only six months later. My parents were visiting my grandparents in Haney and when I arrived, I was hospitalized for months and this forced the first of many moves my parents would make. For obvious reasons, I could not say much then, so now I get to make up for that. It was a rocky start to what my parents say was an eventful but wonderful 50-year adventure.
My parents are rovers. They have moved no less than twenty-eight times in their marriage and we often tease them they could have raised us in a covered wagon. Holidays and special events were always punctuated with road trips, and all of us have a restlessness sense of adventure instilled in us from an early age by our semi nomadic parents. Like Lewis and Clark, Marco Polo and his less famous father Niccolo, and Thelma and Louise, all roving duos can teach us things about how to navigate extended road trips. My parents are no exception. So I have summarized eight things I think my parents would offer as advice how to navigate the journey that has been their 50-year marriage.
Choose quality. It does not matter if this is the process of choosing a spouse or a mode of transportation; focus on not on the superficial, but on the important stuff inside. Now it does not matter what your brand affiliation is; tall or short, Ford, Chev, or foreign, you must make sure you choose something that, first and foremost, going to hold its value. Now some people have to take a few models for a test drive and may make a purchase. Then it leaves them stranded on the side of the road, only to go shopping for a better model. My parents chose well right off the bat. Whether that was good management or blind luck is perhaps up to debate. However, they chose a partner that they could laugh with and weather the hard stuff. Four children later, multiple moves, career changes, one premature birth, Lisa’s accident, open-heart surgery; it was not always easy. However, they were both hard working and committed or maybe just a bit crazy but 50 years later here we are. Like all long-term travel companions, they know each other so well they have their codes. My favourite was “Go ask your Dad/Mom.” This was code for “unlikely to happen,, and I’m not sure why I don’t like this, so you are going to get tossed back and forth until I figure out why my I’m leaning towards no”. They still walk into a room and look for the other first and they still laugh at each other’s’ jokes. They would tell you not to make this choice of a sidekick lightly, because in the end the ones that last that are top quality from day one.
My parents would say do the maintenance. It does not matter how good the model is when you start, if you don’t do the maintenance it is going to break down. Now the irony of this comparison is that there is truth that carpenters houses always need work and mechanics cars often run rough. The vehicles I remember when I was young were often in need of repair and watching my father fix them taught me some of my best language. My mom remembers using a safety pin on one occasion to rig up alternator when she was stranded on the road north of Edson driving home to Camp 20 with three little ones in the backseat. However stay with me here people, it is a metaphor. It’s about doing the maintenance on your marriage. Feed your marriage like you feed your car. Fill it with quality products that help it run. Love and respect is like gasoline. My parents really do look for each other first when they walk in a room, and while I was a little squeamish as a teenager when they would lock lips, now with 27 year of marriage under my own belt it makes me smile. Remember the special days. My dad always remembers birthdays and anniversaries and tries valiantly every time to find a gift mom will love that will reflect his regard for her. It’s an ongoing joke that mom always thinks any gift is a waste of money. Poor Dad always gives his best all the same.
Now other things your transportation needs is the oils and fluids. These are the laughter and a sense of fun. There was a TV commercial when I was in my teens that asked, “Do you know where your children are?” The four of us girls have turned it around. “Do we know where our parents are?” Likely not. They are at a friend’s having coffee, on the road to BC, Arizona, or Newfoundland. They are at a banquet, a music festival, quilting, or volunteering but my parents are out there having fun and making fun.
If it is making an awful noise do not ignore it. My parents are wonderful people but to say they are strong minded is an understatement of epic proportions. Being a witness to their battles sometimes loud and sometimes just a low hum of discontent has been a lesson for all of us. They would say pick your battles. Not every issue is worthy of a blow up. How many times I have heard “Your Dad is.. or your Mom says…” said with exasperation and frustration and confusion. However, they would say there is value in a good dust up. Fight, and they would say fight fair, but neither would tell you to ignore something that is unresolved. That ping becomes a knock that becomes a bang that leaves you stranded on the side of the road if it is not addressed.
Make a plan and have a map but do not be afraid of a side trip. In a marriage, one must have priorities. Those are the points on the horizon or the ultimate destinations on the map. Whether it was a job a home or what community was best for the kids my parents had a plan. They talked about them often …then revised them. Side trips however are the best part of any trip. My parents are always checking out old cabins down overgrown roads. They love the adventure of new places and new people. We have lived in logging camps, they have laid foundations for homes in muskeg, and they have traveled down more bumpy dusty back roads than anyone I know. The road less traveled is an adventure.
Their ultimate destination has always been to be a “productive member of society.” Work hard and help where you can. For my parents the first step in that would be raise their children well. I may not have always liked that my parents were the strictest ones I knew, but I knew they were there for me. They watched as I forgot my lines in my primary school play of Goldilocks and the three Bears and their presence saved me from a panic attack there in front of the whole school. They were there bullying and cheering us on through our biggest challenges. They were picking us up from parties in wildly uncool vehicles; they were supervising homework, being brown owl and maintaining a ski lift at Silver Summit in Edson in exchange for seasons’ passes. We were their priority. We also watched as they showed us that no community exists without the participation and contribution of everyone. They were helping friends with repairs, renovations, volunteering for community groups and projects and stopping at the side of the road when someone was stranded. We always knew that the kind of person we say we are is less important than the person we act like.
On a long road trip, switch drivers periodically. My parents taught us that to make a good marriage you can’t be the driver all the time. First no one finds a trip fun if only one person decides where you are going what to see and when to stop. However, many a trip decision was made on the preference of one and the second gives in with a shrug. “We can work with that” is a bit of a motto for my parents. My mom and dad are always negotiating, whether it is for the purchase of a vehicle, a move or a holiday they are planning revising and making sure both can be happy.
The other reason switching drivers is that everyone needs a rest sometime. When dad needed heart surgery when they lost their parents, when Lisa lost her hand, my parents are their own support network. When one falters, the other one steps up. No one must be strong at all times.
No road trip is complete without a dashboard lunch. For those of you who do not know what this is, this is sandwiches and fruit made on the dropped door of a glove box or on a tailgate sitting in a rest stop and slapped together on the fly. This had a twofold benefit. One it was cheap, and when you were taking four growing girls on a holiday this was crucial. Second, it is one of the most important traditions that my parents instilled in us. We broke bread together. It was when we talked about our days, told stories, argued politics or religion. It was a time to connect. All of us were together at suppertime and as we grew up and moved out, the family dinner became the mechanism to reconnecting. At times, we can sit thirty people or more for Christmas dinner and the din was incredible. My parents like nothing more to host family friends and strangers who soon become friends. They eat dinner together almost every night. They talk every day and many times a day, about big things and everyday things. What food is on the table or the tailgate is not as important as who you are with.
Another key to enjoying a long road trip is to turn up the tunes. An abiding love of music is something my parents have in common and they have nurtured many common interests in their journey together. They love to dance, they have an extensive record collection and both of them like to sing. Most road trips are accompanied to music on the radio. When the children got cranky Mom would lead us in a sing along. That we can harmonize now, is a function of the whining we did crammed into the backseat of whatever vehicle we were in. As soon as the scrapping started mom would start, “Boom Boom aint it great to be crazy!” They know where the date and location of all music festivals are between here and Arizona. Their lawn chairs have been folded and unfolded to the accompaniment of bluegrass, country and folk in so many places it is amazing.
Finally make sure you take pictures and keep a log of where you have been. Pictures of my parents on lakeside campsites, overlooks, with friends in odd encampments, wild horses, and old cabins in the bush not only let us know where they have been but they tell their story of the challenges they faced, what they learned, who they met and what they loved. My parents are not secret keepers but storytellers. The wisdom they share and the affection they speak of during their adventures becomes a guidebook for those of who travel those same roads years later. As we meet the challenges and joys of our lives, that guidebook of is referenced. We travel those same roads and when and we come to a place where they have been; raising kids, dealing with an illness, dealing with difficult people or financial challenges, we have a roadmap of how they made it through. We may not go exactly the same direction but believe me that travel log is in our back pocket.
My mom and I were talking yesterday about what makes a good marriage. My mom spoke about how long marriages are the ones with smooth and bumpy roads but the resiliency to survive. It is a trip that inevitably has some roads as smooth as glass and others so bumpy you are clutching the holy shit handles with all your strength. But in the end when those roads jar you, if your marriage it is to last you build really sturdy shocks to soften the jarring to your hind end, and when you go airborne and finally land with a thud, if U can the look at the person in the seat beside you, and say, “Wow. That was so exciting it gave me butterflies! Can we do it again?!” you know you are on the road with the right person.
So here is to fifty years, to the adventure so far, to the smooth roads and bumpy, the wonderful places you have been and all your companions on the way. May you have good shocks and that the roads you travel in the future be filled with love and fun enough to give you butterflies.
Everyday Muses 