Thanksgiving Eve 2020: I’m grateful for my wedding anniversary

 

On the night before Thanksgiving, it’s timely to share what we’re grateful for, and here’s the No. 1 reason why I’ll be giving thanks on Turkey Day 2020.

This column was originally published in the November 2020 edition of Jewish Rhode Island of Providence, RI.

Like just about everything we’ve encountered in this year of the coronavirus pandemic that even the brilliant mind of “Twilight Zone” creator and writer Rod Serling would have been hard pressed to imagine, Thanksgiving will be a most unusual holiday. Even if the virus remains relatively steady – and that’s a huge “if” --- family dinners will be smaller, and travel will be a fraction of what it normally is.
But one aspect of the day should remain unchanged, besides eating too much turkey: the desire to give thanks. At the top of my list of things that I’ll be grateful for is the fact that in late October, my wife and I celebrated our 32^nd wedding anniversary.
Given the fact that both of us have seen more of each other in the last several months than we did in many previous years, including those when I was working nights and didn’t get home until 2 or 3 a.m., it seemed like, in the midst of a pandemic, reaching that milestone was worth celebrating.
At least that‘s my view in this year when we've learned not to take anything for granted.
As our anniversary approached, I realized that I'm the lucky one in our marriage, because over the last three decades my wife has shown many hidden talents, while I've proven myself to be inept at many things. Indeed, after 32 years together, I still can't put a Tupperware lid on straight or baking dishes back where they belong --- and I remain folding challenged when it comes to laundry.
I recently realized again how lucky I am to be married to Lynne when a balky bathtub faucet refused to shut off. I alerted her to the problem, but she wasn't faring better at stopping the flow of water, and it looked like we were going to have to use the nuclear option to prevent a major flood: shut the water off in the house.
And then it happened: She tried one last time and --- voila – the deluge stopped.
My wife has been solving our everyday problems for the last three decades. Even before we were married, she helped me clean up my one-bedroom apartment, where the floor was covered in so many newspapers that I had forgotten what color the carpet was. And, throughout our marriage she’s been the one who is handy with tools --- the running joke is that I’ve been forbidden by law to possess or operate sharp objects; calling me a handy man would be both an oxymoron and dishonest.
So, yes, after 32 years, I’m very thankful for my wife’s expertise, common sense, managerial skills in running our household, and for her patience in putting up with me when we work together on chores such as putting in and taking out the window air conditioners. That became an important joint task years ago after, while doing it solo, I inadvertently bounced an air conditioner off the back-porch steps.
I knew Lynne was a keeper right from the first time I asked her out, because she seemed to understand me when I called her just several hours after having gum surgery. That was no small accomplishment because under normal circumstances, my tendency to mumble makes it hard to understand me, let alone when my mouth was still sore from oral surgery.
My good vibes about her continued on our first date, when after an afternoon walking around in downtown Newport, we had dinner and much of my pasta dish wound up on my plate instead of in my mouth due to the aforementioned dental procedure. Mind you, I was impressed that she had even agreed to travel to Newport with me, but later, I learned that she had taken no chances as she had tucked away $100 in her shoe just in case – in this era well before Uber – I turned out to be a creep and she had to take a cab back to her Taunton apartment.
Fortunately for her, there was no need to activate that plan, and there was a second date a week later and a wedding a year later.
Over the years, we’ve endured the usual joys and sorrows that couples face. We’ve been blessed with two daughters and shared their milestones, including a college and high school graduation in two of the last three years. We had to watch our parents age, clean out their homes and apartments, and then bury them. And, last year, we worked together to get my wife on the mend after she broke her wrist.
Through the three-plus decades of our marriage, the main ingredient that has kept us together is humor, specifically, the ability to laugh at ourselves.
Learning to laugh during tough times has been an especially vital skill this year, when we've been socially isolated, told to keep away from activities and close friends we cherish and have been forced to grapple with a set of confusing and contradictory rules from our government. Given that atmosphere, maintaining a sense of humor has kept us sane.
That's why, when we lost the use of our main shower and bathtub for a while due to that broken faucet, and we had to get accustomed to using our downstairs shower, which is similar to the kind found in most hotel rooms, we coped with humor.
“Well, we had better enjoy it, as it might be as close as we get to a hotel room for a while,” I said, “so let’s pretend that we’re on vacation every time we shower.”
We both had a good laugh over that.
Hey, don't knock it; these days, the bar is pretty low for humor.
LARRY KESSLER (larrythek65@gmail.com) is a freelance writer based in North Attleboro. He blogs at  https://larrytheklineup.blogspot.com/