"I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you." These are words that Larry and I have never spoken to each other, despite being joined in holy matrimony for 33 years. In our strict Mennonite background, wedding bands were classified as jewelry, which was forbidden; one's adornment was only to be of the inner self and flashy gold and silver drew attention to one's body. Furthermore one's "yes" should mean "yes." No symbol was necessary to remind you of your solemn marriage vows.
After our wedding, Larry and I began distancing ourselves from our legalistic upbringing. Our educational dreams became a reality, as we both assumed the role of "student." Larry entered medical school and I began working toward a bachelor of science in nursing. We were deliriously happy, despite being poor as church mice; all of our resources were poured into tuition payments. We assumed that at some future date, when we actually had an income, we would purchase wedding rings, so that all the world would know that we belonged to each other.
Near the end of our first year at Wright State University, we received the tragic news of my brother-in-law's auto accident in Vienna, Austria. David and Trish lived on a small side street in a Austrian neighborhood with their four young children. Another driver ran into David's car; he was broken and battered and fortunate to be alive. He was hospitalized for seven weeks. The plan was for their family to relocate back to the States when David was mobile enough, to continue rehab. They needed extra hands to pack up their household and move across seas. Larry and I started looking at my school schedule to see if it would be possible for me to take off a month and go to Vienna to help the Waglers. I was finishing my first semester of A & P (anatomy and physiology). There were several weeks after spring classes ended before the summer semester began; I was slated to take the second A & P class in the summer. If I flew to Austria as soon as spring semester finished, I could stay for a month to help them pack up and move back, and only miss two weeks of the anatomy and physiology class. I went to the professor to plead my case. He was rather startled at this request. He looked at my grades and saw that I was a diligent student. Finally, he agreed that if I could pass an exam on the missed material (which happened to be neuroanatomy and physiology!), he would accommodate my absence.
And so I found myself on a plane, shortly before our second wedding anniversary, bound for Vienna. I felt such empathy for my sister and her family and wanted to do all I could to help lighten their heavy load, but it was a long month. Most days, Trish took baby Maria with her to the hospital to be with David, and I would watch the other kids at their house and work on packing. I enjoyed being "Aunt Cindy" to Bethany, Vanya, and Rochelle, but wasn't quite prepared for the constant nature of parenting children. Smile. The low point occurred one afternoon when 6 year old Vanya and 8 year old Rochelle disappeared. I frantically searched the neighborhood, trying to ask neighbors for assistance, despite the language barrier. After three hours, I resigned myself to breaking the news to Trish, upon her arrival home, that I had lost her children. Suddenly the two appeared, looking rather guilty. They had climbed up into a tree in the back yard, and watched my frantic searching. I am sure that their own children have since repaid them. Smile.
Four weeks is a long time for newlyweds to be apart; actually, that is a long time for any-weds! Larry had started his second year rotations and was counting the days until I returned. He actually called me on our anniversary. Remember, those were the days before skype or cell phones, when overseas calls were outrageously expensive. Larry was with friends of ours in Dayton, Phil and Julee Jantzi, and when they discovered that it was our anniversary and we were on different continents, they went to their ATM and withdrew $20 for Larry to call me. That kindness still brings tears to our eyes.
The day finally arrived when I was going home to my sweetheart. The ten hour flight from Vienna to Chicago was arduous. David was still convalescing and needed assistance; there were empty seats in a row near the rear of the plane and we were able to make a bed of sorts for him to stretch out. And then there were those bright, active, Wagler kids to convince that staying in their seats for all those hours was a good idea! Due to my inability to lactate, I was not able to feed 9 month old Maria, but I made many trips around all the aisles of that 747 with her little blonde self in my arms. When she was smiling, I pretended she was my own. When she was crying, I sent telepathic messages to the other passengers: "I don't know what is wrong with her. This is not my child." I guess it is hard to be motherly before you are a mother.
I wished the Waglers well in Chicago, and boarded a plane for Columbus, Ohio, where Larry was waiting to meet me. As you can imagine, it was quite a reunion. We vowed never to be apart again for that length of time. When we arrived back at our tiny apartment, there was a mysterious little, square, box setting on the $15 kitchen table that Larry had snagged at the Goodwill Store. When I opened the box, there lay two thin, gold, wedding bands, his and hers. While I was in Austria, Larry worked a rotation with a family practice doctor. In the course of conversation, he told the doc about his wife being gone for the month. The physician glanced at Larry's left hand and said slyly, "I see you have your ring off already. Guess you are going to have a good time." Appalled by the implication, Larry immediately went shopping and bought our rings with $70 of our scarce resources. It felt delicious to slip those bands on our fingers. It didn't make us any more married that we already were, but it was lovely to wear a symbol that showed everyone else that I was his and he was mine.
I jumped back into the summer anatomy and physiology class; the professor gave me two weeks before I would need to take the neuro exam over the material that I had missed. Being a medical student, Larry had access to the cadaver lab at Wright State University, where we were both students. For two weeks, we spent nearly every evening in the formaldehyde-perfumed lab, examining cadaver brains. Larry taught me everything I needed to know, as we looked through the buckets of brains. I can still recite the mnemonic for the twelve cranial nerves: On-Old-Olympus-Towering-Tops-A-Fin-And-German-Viewed-Some-Hops. That stands for Olfactory-Optic-Oculomotor-Trochlear-Trigeminal-Abducens-Facial-Auditory-Glossopharyngeal-Vagus-Spinal accessory-Hypoglossal. Not that I would recommend this cozy setting for date night, but it got the job done: I made a 96% on the exam. I know, should have been 100%, but I got two nerves mixed up when I identified them for the test.
Three years later, graduation day with both of us in caps and gowns (okay, so he had a hood as well!) was a proud moment! It meant so much to accomplish our mutual educational goals. Our next move brought us real paying jobs. I remember us looking at those first paychecks and one of us saying out loud, "we should frame these, but we need the money too much." As the years have gone by, the tiny apartment has been replaced with a lovely home. We have been fortunate enough to be able to enjoy wonderful trips with our kids, we have been able to provide for their education in ways that were never available to us, and yes, we pay someone every week to clean our pool. But I am quite sentimental about our $70 wedding bands. When I look at my finger, I remember two kids with no money to their names, but rich in love and dreams and hopes.
Over the years, I have been drenched with meteorite showers of jewels from my romantic husband, perhaps in his sweet way, making up for the years of doing without. On our fifteenth anniversary, following a lovely dinner at an old country club in Cashiers, NC, he pulled out a ring with five diamonds, one for each member of our family, and said the things he would have said if he'd had a ring to give to me all those years ago. There was a glittering tennis bracelet on my fortieth birthday, after he and my dear friend, Amy, threw a surprise party for me. On our 25th anniversary, at a cliff-hugging restaurant, high about Lake Como, Italy, there were more than stars sparkling in the black sky: another elegant box appeared, more diamonds and sweet words. Larry doesn't just pick out jewelry for me; he knows the jeweler and they design one-of-a-kind pieces. I know, he should be cloned!
For quite some time, I wanted to get a larger, nicer wedding band for Larry, as he was still only wearing the original, thin, gold band. For our 30th anniversary, I paid a visit to his jeweler friend, Arney Guess, and we designed a ring for Larry. The original band is encased in white gold and is an integral part of the new ring. It is substantial without losing the sentiment of that first, simple, circle.
You might say that we have come full circle. Despite the extra bling, we are the same inside today as we were all those years ago: happily bonded and now, also banded. Happy Anniversary Sweetheart! Cheers to many more years of being "us".
