Still

By Jack Wyman

Her eyes.

They were beautiful.

That’s what I first remember. They were some of the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen. At my parents’ farm in Pittsfield, Maine, on May 4, 1981, I knew I was really in love for the first time in my life.

That this young woman had come into my life, and loved me too, I regarded as a miracle akin to the parting of the Red Sea.

It was exciting. Feelings I’d never had before this day flooded over my heart as cascading waterfalls.

So, this is what falling in love really is, I thought. It wasn’t something to describe. It was wordless, something to experience. I had, and was sure of it.

Elisabeth Ellen Kelly had come to Maine for the first time. My sister, Truly, had invited her to be in her wedding—a ceremony at which I’d be officiating. Just three short months earlier, Truly had played matchmaker and introduced us—over the telephone. Beth and Truly had attended John Brown University in Arkansas. They lived on the same floor, in the same dorm.

I’d wanted to spare this girl and me the awkward embarrassment of small talk between strangers. To no avail. “Here she comes now, just say hello.”

I ended up in a long-distance relationship I’d resolved never to enter. To my utter surprise, it was going pretty well—and fairly fast. We first spoke at the end of March. Following a lot of phone, card and letter activity, we met in May. On June 18, with the sun setting on Sand Beach in Arcadia National Park on the Maine coast, I asked Beth to marry me.

We were engaged in September, I met her parents in Ohio that month, and we were married in February. It was 11 months after, “just say hello.”

We lived in Waterville, Maine, where our three daughters were delivered by the same doctor, in the same hospital. Beth was a pastor’s wife at 22, a mother at 23. When she was 29, I was a nominee for the United States Senate. She gave birth to our youngest daughter during the campaign.

Those were good years. Beth, an Oklahoma native, fell in love with New England. I had a busy and fulfilling career in ministry and politics. She was a liberated woman, made her choice to be a homemaker, and devoted her time and energy to being a wife and mother. That’s what she wanted. That’s what made her happy; that was her career choice. I neither encouraged or discouraged her ambitions—I supported her.

Beth was much more successful at her career than I was at mine. We thank God for that. Together, by His grace and strength, we made it all work—each of us doing what we loved and were good at.

Through the years, like most couples, we rode the rollercoaster of life. When I had prayed for a daughter, I had no idea how complicated and difficult raising one would be. God gave us three, which made us quite philosophical about child-rearing. We always smiled knowingly at each other whenever we heard an expert.

We weren’t expecting to have two of our kids in body casts at once, the result of hip dysplasia surgery. Beth bore up with her usual strength and patience.

Every touch, every word, every adjustment, every sacrifice, every lifting, every trip to Boston’s Children’s Hospital was covered with tender love. I can’t recall a single complaint, grumbling, self-pitying, or anything else from their mother that would ever make our girls think they were a burden or inconvenience.

A few years later, there were the many young men who came calling. Anyone with daughters understands this stage and saga. The once-upon-a-time determined resolutions seem distantly obsolete—replaced by something akin to survival. I suddenly sympathized with the movie dad who startled one young suitor by reminding him that he had a gun—and a shovel in the basement.

“I doubt anyone would miss you,” he ruefully smiles. Beth and I laughed at that scene more than once.

God protected us—and them. We now have three outstanding sons-in-law. We’re joyously celebrating five precious grandchildren who are, arguably, the most beautiful in Texas, perhaps in the nation.

This month, Beth and I celebrated our 40th anniversary. Though we may doubt that fact, the calendar bears unimpeachable witness.

Through the years, we’ve often thought about the simple and solemn vows we made that cold snowy evening in that beautiful historic Congregational church in Hudson, Ohio. We pledged our love, from that day forward—for better, for worse; in sickness and in health; for richer, for poorer. We promised to love and to cherish one another until the veil of death itself would “us do part.”

It was good that we didn’t know then all that this might involve. Better not to know the hardships and heartaches we would endure together. Each one has made our love deeper, richer, purer, and stronger.

The joys and celebrations have far outweighed the dark days.

Passion lighted the flame of our love. Through the years, it has often been loyalty to our vows that has kept us married in the worst of our times.

The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that genuine love is more than an emotion—it’s a commitment. This speaks to every human relationship, not just marriage.

“A marriage is not a joining of two worlds,” it has been said, “but an abandoning of two worlds in order that one new one might be formed. ‘How bright is the sun!’ exclaims love, while the marital vows ask, ’How dark a night are you prepared to pass through?’

To keep a vow, therefore, means not to keep from breaking it, but rather to devote the rest of one’s life to discovering what the vow means, and to be willing to change and grow accordingly.”

Those eyes are older and wiser now. I love them more than when I was first riveted by their sight.

They’re beautiful.

Still.


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