Allow me to quote from a film with which I am familiar, given its place in the modern cinematic canon:
Champ: What’s it like, Ron?
Ron: The intimate times? Outta sight, my man.
Brian: No, the other thing. Love.
Brick: Yeah, what is that?
In Anchorman, of course, the group begins singing “Afternoon Delight.” I stop at the question posed. What is love? seems like an overwrought blog topic, but it’s something I’ve pondered lately. Love, relationships, and how the two go together. What is love, and why does it matter, and what does it do?
The story of how my parents met is one I remember well, despite that they are now divorced and can’t stand one another. My mom and I lived in an apartment complex, and there was this obnoxiously loud, souped-up VW Beetle in the neighborhood. My mother cursed it constantly. When a radiologist from Bethesda Naval asked her on a date, my mom was shocked to discover that her date was the owner of that vented, chrome-exhausted monstrosity. In fact, she would ride in that vehicle to her first date with the man who would marry her, eventually adopt me, and with whom she would raise my little brother, Michael. They loved romantically and they married.
But, as I said, their marriage ended fifteen years later. And it hasn’t exactly been my model for healthy relationships. That model has been my grandparents’ marriage, one that endured my Poppop’s military career throughout Scandinavia, Canada, and the U.S. Through hardships to include their inability to conceive (leading to the adoption of my mother and uncles), my Poppop’s medical residencies, and many others that have surely gone unspoken, my grandparents maintained a relationship that has forever made me believe in the existence of true love and true partnership. The two of them were in love, passionately and romantically and emotionally in love, until the day my grandfather died, and I suspect they will be always.
Until I spent last Sunday with my grandmother on a long car ride, it hadn’t occurred to me to ask how they’d met. I’m sure I’ve heard the tale before, but I asked for a refresher anyway. Because I missed my Poppop, and because I’m still curious about love. My Mommom started the following story:
“When I graduated college, I was going on to teach science. But, I felt that I should have one year of practical lab experience before lecturing students.” At this point, it becomes apparent that my grandmother is a genius. Moving on…
“This was when Poppop was a first-year resident, and we would see each other around the lab. There was this handsome, handsome dark-skinned black man, African with beautiful skin, at the bench. He and I would talk during labs, and one day he said, ‘can I ask you a question?’ I said, ‘well sure.’ He asked, ‘are you a Catholic,’ and I said ‘yes, I am.’ And then your Poppop asked me on a date, and I said no. He would always ask sort of at the last minute, on a Friday for a date on Saturday, and I already had a date. He almost didn’t ask the third time!”
So, he sent his friend out to scout? A wingman to see whether you were Catholic?! “Well yes, and it was a nice thing, because that was important to both of us!” And how long did they date? “We’d dated for three years when we were married.”
Following the genius comment, three things about this story immediately strike me: My grandparents were concerned, first and foremost, with their own development as persons and professionals, not snagging a mate. My grandmother really was following that advice she’s given me to not date exclusively. And their relationship, evidently, was based on their Catholic faith even from the very beginning.
Finally, we arrive at my pondering point: Love, God, and how the two might fit together. The quintessential explanation of God to children is that “God is love.” The definition of a Catholic marriage is two people, cleaved onto one another and entering into a covenant under God and the guidance of Jesus Christ. How do the three connect– love, God, and marriage? Is is that two people of faith who fall in love make a good match for marriage? Or is it that love is created out of a marriage of two people of faith? The difference is enormous. The first is entering into a partnership with someone you love. The other is building love with a partner and God, or through God, maybe because of God.
So what is that? I feel sure I know love, but now I’m wondering whether there’s something else. And whether that love I’ve felt is the same thing that held my grandparents together for so many years. There was certainly romance– I’ll never forget an evening in the car with my grandfather, who called my grandmother with the Rat Pack-esque one-liner “Hello, Gorgeous” and held her enrapt on the other end of the line. That’s part of love, too. It’s got to be. I could hear her swooning over her husband of 25 years.
It has been said that love has the power to transform. I wonder if it is what transforms ordinary people into successful married couples. It’s worth pondering in an age when half of all marriages end in divorce. It’s worth questioning what our priorities are even when we date, if a marriage is eventually what we’re looking for. I wonder if we’re currently going about this dating thing all wrong. And I wonder why it seems like a different era altogether when people might say to one other, “This is who I am, these are my beliefs, and eventually I’d like to meet the person I’ll marry.”
Well, when I figure this all out, I’ll let you know. Somebody let me know I’m not alone in considering the subject.
