I remember many times in my life, both young and old, when my elders would attempt to impart wisdom upon me.  It usually came in different forms.  Occasionally, it came while they cradled an injured limb of mine. 

“Trying to hurry causes accidents.”

Or after they had just administered a sharp slap to the back of my head.

“What could you possibly have been thinking?”

With every incidence, these attempts at wisdom, delivered quickly in the heat of emotion were multi-level.  The depth was usually lost on me in the moment, the immediate message one of reprimand and a hint at my multiple shortcomings.

“You do this stuff just to try my patience don’t you?”  

The warnings and wisdom of them were repeated often enough that they became a familiar litany, and I recall them often with the proper inflection and tone.

“You can’t fix stupid, but you can try to pay more attention.”

“It takes a long time to fish for five minutes.”

“Accidents don’t teach lessons, thinking about ‘em does.”

            Eventually, I started pretending to be an adult and there were many relationships that I encountered.  Most were hormonally driven physical experiences at first, that made me question my motivations, wallow in Catholic guilt and wonder if sex was an acceptable substitute for emotional entanglement while marveling at the fact that I felt nothing in my chest in those moments of post-coital bliss. I reasoned that repetitious sex must compute to love.  Love then became a physical experience which did not require caring.  Suddenly I began to look in the mirror and see my father staring back at me.

  Eventually, after I had developed a little more maturity and depth of character, I married and was blessed with children of my own.  Like my father before me I ignored them as much as I could and was grudgingly grateful that their mother displayed a desire to engage with them.  Saving both emotional entanglements with either they or her.

As they grew, familiar situations appeared in their lives that I had previously encountered in my own.  The aphorisms of those past elders resurrected themselves in my memory and I heard my own voice spew them out and with each I suddenly experienced both the superficial, more immediate advice as well as the philosophy beyond it.

“Don’t punch your brother like that!  Payback’s a bitch goddammit!”

And the depth of that same advice but in my father’s voice;

            “Fuck somebody today, two people gonna fuck ya tomorrow.”

            And I began to look at my parent’s relationship in retrospect. I remember their fights.  I remember her tears and his rage.  I remember their teamwork as they paid the bills sitting facing each other on the floor.  I recall the tenderness of their late nights of sitting up with fevered babies, cradling broken arms and attending Christmas pageants.  I saw my father deeply care while at the same time denying that he did.  I saw my mother sag against him for support when it was all too much.  And I saw him stand tall, when it was needed.

I was shamed that I hadn’t seen it sooner and that it had taken my own children and their problems for me to see it.  I started seeing my marriage, my children and my life through a different lens.  I discovered that the only person that I had been fooling was myself.

            When my father and mother had been married for sixty years my many siblings threw a big anniversary party for them.  Invitations went to everyone, both related and merely acquaintances.  My father, being who he was, refused to go until he discovered that my mother’s old boyfriend, still alive after all those years, was going to be there as well.  So he grudgingly agreed, to attend, but not participate in—”anything silly or embarrassing”.

The party was held in my sister’s back yard and the warm summer weather was perfect.  We lost track of the guests and well-wishers.  The food was great, and the beverages were plentiful.  The party was a huge success. 

Afterward the women repaired to the kitchen to wash up, drink coffee and complain about their husbands.  My brothers and I gathered on the patio and shared a toast to my father.  Cigars were distributed and for awhile we smoked in the quiet of the summer darkness.  It was a peaceful moment, and we all reflected on the personal memories that we each carried within ourselves.  Finally, one of my brothers leaned forward and poured another shot in every glass and said,

“So Dad?  What’s it like?  Sixty years of marriage, what’s it like?”

My father rolled the cigar in his mouth and looked up at the sky.  We all thought he was ignoring the question, lost in the enjoyment of the cigar.  But then he leaned forward and pointed the lit end of the cigar at each one of us in turn.

“Sixty years of marriage, five years of bliss.”

Then he threw back the shot and finished;

“Worth every minute.”

I finally understood.