Are you ready to switch off your screens and ponder or discuss another writing/conversation prompt from my friend Tyrean Martinson’s book? Here’s my take on it.
What a coincidence as this week actually marked a wedding anniversary in our family, that of my wonderful stepson and his lovely wife. We were at their Texas wedding a couple of years ago, and it’s a common thing to have a wedding this time of year down there because the weather finally gets bearable as to temperature. Talking about which, my husband’s and mine was an April wedding back in the day, and we were plain lucky because between weeks of April showers, our wedding weekend was the only sunny one.
To be honest, I can’t remember the wedding vow of the younger couple. It was a very unusual wedding. Beautiful to behold and very touching. I remember I had tears in my eyes.
But I still remember the wedding vow my husband and I exchanged at the altar, word by word. “To have and to hold” was definitely part of it. We had spent weeks on the wording. We wanted it to say everything that we could create as a formal bond, one that would remind us of our responsibilities towards the other. It was a vow into which both of us poured our hearts. My husband worked on it in England, I in Germany. We called each other on the phone about it. We sent each other variations via email.
To have and to hold. We were in our late 30s when we met. We were way past the point at which love is all dovey, having had our experiences each. We knew our wedding would be a life changer for the both of us. We were aware that our spring chicken days were over. To have and to hold bore all the thoughts one carries when one knows that one gets older, in the end frailer, maybe more vulnerable.
I sometimes ponder the “to have” part, though. It sounds so very possessive. As if one owned one’s spouse. And maybe, in a way, one does, as this vow marks some exclusiveness against other people. It creates a partnership that lets in nobody else. And the “to hold” part is one of comfort and support. We even added some words to our vow that aren’t in the classical one. And we preceded ours with even more. No, not just words. I sometimes still find myself speaking these sacred thoughts. All of them. Because we put so much love into them; a love that has been carrying to this day and, may God help us, will do so way and beyond.
Our church added the formal vow of theirs after we had exchanged ours. And the ceremonial ones that make it binding in the church (not legally so, in Germany, mind – you have to have married by a registrar first!). That part went by in a blur. That, which sticks, is the vow that we gave each other in our own words. To have and to hold … and never to let go.
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(Photo: Beatriz Pérez Moya @https://unsplash.com/)
