“Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.”
– Kahlil Gibran, On Marriage
Thirty years ago yesterday, on a sunny October day, family and friends gathered in front of a tiny adobe chapel on a four hundred acre ranch along the Old Santa Fe Trail for our wedding. Excited for the ceremony to begin I opened the door of the guesthouse and yelled out, “I’m ready to get married now.”
My father came over and offered me his arm. We walked down the dirt path towards the small chapel. When we reached Cradoc my father released my arm. “I’m ready too,” Cradoc said. We went into the chapel and fifty guests squeezed in behind us.
.
After the minister Carol Bell Knight read our vows Cradoc slipped a simple gold band onto my finger. “Therese, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love for you. I will honor you, cherish you and stand by your side forever and a day.” Tears welled up in his eyes.
I put a gold band onto Cradoc’s finger, held his hands, hands as soft as silk and strong as steel. “Cradoc, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love for you. I will honor you, cherish you and stand by your side forever and a day.”
Carol took each of our ringed hands in hers. “May you both live a long and healthy life. May your days be blessed with friendship and joy. By the power vested in me by the state of New Mexico, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Our kiss salty from our tears, we turned to face our family and friends as the musician, David, sang our wedding song by John Denver, Perhaps Love: “Perhaps love is like a resting place, a shelter from the storm. It exists to give you comfort, it is there to keep you warm, and in those times of trouble when you are most alone, the memory of love will bring you home.”
Happy Anniversary Cradoc. Wherever you are is home to me.
