60th Anniversary

August 17th was the 60th Anniversary of our wedding — August 17th, 1957. Here’s a new poem and some old and new pictures.

TO A HUSBAND



Today the Visiting Nurse Association

has pronounced me able to walk up

the flight of stairs to our double bed.

According to the computer,

I am today 29,908 days old.

Of those days, I have lived with you

21,430 days. We have slept together

more than twenty-one thousand nights.

I gripped the handrail with two hands

as the Visiting Nurse physical therapist

watched from the first floor and you

followed one step behind me

to catch me if I fell. When we were

half way up, she became as concerned

about you falling, as she was for me.

I did fall for you on a Saturday

58 years, 35 weeks and 1 day ago.

I stood at the back of the chapel

of our school out of sight waiting

in the dress my mother made, its

French lace and great satin scallops.

For a few minutes as the organ played

and Chester sang the song I had written,

I stood out of sight and alone.

I thought, Who is this guy? I don’t

even know him! Then I was directed

to the doorway and I saw you

at the end of that long center aisle

through our gathered beloved,

and you grinned at me, and I

thought, Oh, yeah – him.

And walked slowly to you

toward the rest of my life.

Today it has been 72 nights

since I fell again, taking a turn

from my standing computer desk

to my sit-down desk

by the window with the bird feeder.

For 72 nights I have slept in a hospital,

a rehab center, and finally

in a single bed under windows

in the room where I write.

You slept upstairs until

they brought me home

with my walker and my special tools

for doing things without bending

my hip more than 90 degrees.

27 nights we kissed good night

in the room where I write, and

you went to sleep on the couch.

Today, after we practiced walking

up the stairs to our bedroom,

you behind me, the therapist

watching – after she left,

you went to your clarinet

and played a sweet melody

by Mozart. Then I asked you

to play my favorite song,

Just a Closer Walk With Thee,

and when you took off with a wild

jazz riff, I cried, remembering

how — both of us virgins in that

long ago time — how you carried me

across the threshold in an old hotel

for our first night sleeping together,

twenty one thousand nights ago.

-Pat Schneider