Karen and I married on what some, with questionable kindness, once thought a whim.
Since then, we have racked up almost 29 years of marriage — and 19 moves in those same 29 years.
We have lived in six states, three of those states more than once, and two countries.
We raised my youngest brother, Patrick, after my mother’s premature death of breast cancer in 1981, at which time Karen and I had only been months married, and Karen, God bless her, had made room in the blush of her own life for my brother, himself only ten years younger than she.
Karen and I later had five children of our own, all of them born at home. We home-schooled most of them most of the time. And Karen later brave-faced the years of my graduate school at Notre Dame, then was, if anything, even more stalwart during those pre-med science years back in Vermont, and, later still, during med school in Iowa and during residency, all of which, in the end, cost each and both and all of us some 13 years of what might otherwise have been some semblance of a normal life.
Under such circumstances, who could blame Karen for not at times wondering what could-a, would-a, should-a been?
Certainly, not me. Not the guy responsible for much, if not quite all, of the above.
Still, when it comes to the unexperienced and the unrequited, Karen is, and she herself would readily admit, the queen of what-might-have-beens:
“If only we’d not moved from Cornwall (Vermont) and had never left that little grey cape I loved…”
“Surely, we should have saved more than we did and much earlier, especially now that we’re older…”
“What if you’d never gone to med school…what if you’d just gotten a teaching job at the Academy (St. Johnsbury, in Vermont)…”
“We could have just stayed in Ireland…we could have bought that acre of land on the ocean west of Dingle, back when no one knew where Dingle was…could have had a life unequal to any we’ve lived since…”
“We should never have sold that house and those ten acres in Jericho (Vermont)… remember the snowstorm that greeted us on our arrival…it snowed for a week…two feet of snow all around, trees hung with snow, the very air a mystery, the lineman linking our phone line a mirage trudging from the house to the distant pole through the falling snow…”
“What if we’d never left Peacham (Vermont, again), what if we’d never left the brick house or the Gagliardi house or the brown house…what, what might have been…”
“And, yes, Karen,” I patiently tell her, not for the first time, never for the last, “We could-a, would-a, should-a…”
Yes, Karen…
We’d now be somewhere, undoubtedly under other, better or less circumstances, but still wondering what might have happened, if only we’d not done this or done that.
If only we’d not been so quick to sell this house or sold that one later or for more money; if, perhaps, the sun had not shined on August 22nd of any particular year, or if, instead of going to the grocery store in the morning of some now-dead day, I’d gone in the afternoon; or, maybe, just maybe, we should never have left Virginia twenty-something years ago. Maybe I should have stayed with Time-Life Books until, as eventually happened, there was no more Time-Life Books; maybe I would have gotten some kind of buy-out, some gilded, silvered or bronzed parachute; and maybe, maybe, as you’ve often suggested, we should have had one child instead of five, or five homes instead of 19, 19 dogs instead of one, one career instead of two, eight cars instead of five…
We’ll never know, though, Karen. Because we never lived those days.
And because here, here we are…
You, Karen.
And me.
Here.
Now.
Together for 28 years and counting, a few down, most up, with five kids to love and to still watch grow, not to mention that youngest brother of mine, who, despite the fact that we used our parental training wheels on him — and he did his spin on us (right, Patrick?) — has done more than okay.
And so, Karen, so have we.
And, yes, Karen, we could-a, we would-a, we should-a …
But we’d not be here, now, in this moment, this place, still moving forward, for better or for worse, as once we promised one another that day, that lunch hour — that whim —those 28-and-something years ago, in front of that justice of the peace, all to the alarm of my then-boss and our still-friend, Glenn, who vowed never again to leave me unattended in any lunch hour ever…
Nor, if we’d stayed put, would we ever have known the likes of Vreni and Peter, of Frank and lost Joan, of Glenn and Maria, and, back in Vermont, of Jean Clark, of John and Wendy and Bob and Sharon, of Tim and Betsy, whom time eventually made the in-laws you wish you would have; and, still in Vermont, of Kathleen Kolb, of Jean and long-missed Howard, of Dick Birdsall and Edith and Gordon; on to South Bend, and Kevin and Indie, Diana and John, dear, dear Mary and her family; and here in Iowa, Helen and Bob, Jane and Geery, Marti and John, and so many, many more, unnamed here, and all, all, all of whom have graced our lives…
Would never remember a certain swing at a certain Vermont motel at a certain vanished time in our lives, way back in 1986, as we watched our two toddler children on that same swing and committed ourselves then, that dulcet evening, that very moment, to a life in Vermont…
Could not now think of the stereotypically silent Calvin Coolidge without recalling our own not-to-be-forgotten picnic, what, maybe 20 years ago, a stone’s throw from Coolidge’s modest house in Plymouth, Vermont, and a photograph, taken by a friendly passer-by, on that passer-by’s own urging, that very same day, one that, to this day, preserves one moment of one very memorable day…
Should never still hear, on a footpath near the Notre Dame Basilica, the skip and scamper of our children’s ghosted younger feet as all of us walked, on any given Sunday, from graduate housing to Mass and back again…
Would not have found, in Iowa, a place to call here, if not quite home…
We could-a, Karen…
would-a, Karen…
should-a, Karen…
Still, life’s been good, really good.
And, at the same time, it has also at times been hard.
And, Karen, I do admit to having made it harder.
Freelancing was never quite free. Med school — sorry, Joseph, “follow-your-bliss,” Campbell — was never anybody’s idea of middle-age bliss. And residency was hardly an improvement on med school.
And let’s not even discuss our decisions since then.
But if we’d not done what we’ve done, you and I, Karen, would not be who we are.
And just look at you, Karen.
The librarian you, at twenty, could never have imagined you’d be, your work, your good work, your very good work, loved by kids and parents alike, from Iowa City to Vermont. Not to mention mother of five — six, if you count Patrick — and a good, no, truly gifted, mother at that. Survivor of all those moves, and, let’s face it, medical school and residency and too much more. And still, still, the girl you were, the woman you are, the woman you so deeply are.
Me?
All I got out of all of this was an MD, which, in the longer view, is not much.
Yes, Karen, we could-a, would-a, should-a..,
But, again, here we are, with all that we’ve lived behind us and whatever we’ve left to live ahead. And, mindful of that, mindful that the path ahead is at once climbing and narrowing, what’s next?
© 2009 Dónal Kevin Gordon
