One Buggy Love

This Week's Song - In Spite of Ourselves - by John Prine (accompanied by Iris DeMent) This one is a real classic. Hilarious. I'm sure there is some "One Buggy Love" in there. 

"She's my baby, I'm her honey,

I'm never gonna let her go"

One Buggy Love

The fellowship room at Concord Presbyterian Church filled up on Valentine’s Day for the annual Sweetheart Banquet. Mike Berger made a special Chicken Cordon Bleu with rice and roasted vegetables. There was a Strawberry Pretzel Salad. I’ve never been to a church social or potluck dinner where  Strawberry Pretzel Salad wasn't on the menu. Perhaps its origins can be found in Leviticus. The director of the night’s festivities called in November to invite me to serve as the featured speaker at the banquet. “You’ll follow Peggy, who will play a few pieces on the piano,” Jim Shawn told me. “And, of course, we’d love for you to bring your sweetheart.” 

Given the occasion, I knew what Jim was asking me to do. Jim’s daughter, Amy, was my first wife’s best friend growing up. Amy and the future Cheryl Pryor grew up in the same Farragut neighborhood where skinned knees were healed with a mother’s kiss and the sounds of children at play danced on the branches of the Pines and Sugar Maples. Mrs. Shawn was my 7th Grade teacher. Jim relayed that I was her favorite student in a long and distinguished teaching career. No surprise there. She did say “favorite,” not “best.” The Shawn’s loved Cheryl, and in the Fall of 1984 I began to join in the sentiment. What Jim Shawn was asking me to do on this day of Love, was talk about Cheryl and Nancy, the only two sweethearts I’ve ever had, and the compelling story that goes along with us. He expected me to inspire, to cause laughter and tears. I suppose I shouldn’t complain. When you are crazy enough to write about your life, you should expect to be asked to talk about it. I accepted. When my kids asked what Nancy and I were doing for Valentine’s Day, I told them I was giving a speech about LOVE. “Why?” asked the always inquisitive Cori. “Don’t ask silly questions, girl. I am an expert in the field.” Eyes rolled.

There has been one constant in my life for 48 years - Love. My story is not a secret - Boy meets beautiful girl, they fall in Love. High school romance turns to Marriage. They have babies and start to build a life. Girl dies unexpectedly, boy is broken. Sadness ensues. Then, lightning strikes - boy meets another girl, and an unexpected and great Love follows. If you want the details, read my blog (One Last Prayer, parts 1 and 2) or stop me on the street. The first Epistle to the Corinthians proclaims “Love is not proud,” but give me a minute or two and I’m sure to disappoint the Apostle Paul. I love telling my story. It celebrates Nancy, the most magnificent and remarkable woman on the planet, and it keeps Cheryl present and warmly remembered as the special woman, wife, mother, daughter and friend that she was. Not to mention, I get to brag a bit about the two amazing women who had plenty to choose from but chose ME. So I sat down to craft an inspirational oral history of my life and the great Loves that have been visited upon me when the phone rang - It was my Dad. I set my pen aside and listened as he told me about taking my mother to the grocery store. During the recounting of that momentous event, I was reminded of the origins of my understanding of Love and the fact they came along way before Cheryl and Nancy graced my life.

"She's My Baby, I'm Her Honey"
One Buggy Love

“You take half the list, and I’ll meet you at the register,” my mother told him. Her knee needs to be replaced. She’s already had one of them replaced and avoids the subject. My father struggles with recurrent Atrial Fibrillation and some arthritis in his knees. “Nope,” he said with enthusiasm, “we’ll take one buggy and do the whole thing together.” The two of them meandered through the grocery store, aisle-to-aisle, each grasping the cart and each other at times for support as they carefully selected the ingredients for a meal they would prepare together. During the trip to the store and while making dinner they talked about their children, grandchildren, and their two golden retrievers (Maggie and Molly). As Dad shared with me the major event in his day, the subject matter took me back 16 years when I first heard him speak of this kind of Love. 

I sat across from him in his office in the Winter of 2001, just weeks after Cheryl died. We were trying to understand something incapable of understanding. The focus had been on the children, but my father took this opportunity to tell me how he mourned for me. He spoke of his sadness that I hadn’t been able to experience the ultimate stage of love. He described it as the Love that is formed in the fires along life’s road, that takes a place above and beyond the puppy love of adolescence, is far superior to the life-altering passion of youth, and more transcendent than the work-horse love of raising children and seeing them to adulthood. I made the connection between the two conversations as I listened to him, smiling through the phone, talk about his walk with my mom through Publix. After 54 years together, they are in love. It is a love forged by time, perseverance, and patience. Those who have acquired it celebrate with linked hands and walks on the beach. It is found in the aisles of grocery stores and in the silence of reading the Sunday paper next to one another. It was also noticed within the confines of the banquet hall at Concord Presbyterian Church on Valentine’s Day while Peggy’s hands dance on the pearly keys as I watched these older couples smile at one another. It is a peaceful and quiet Love, confident in its origins and strengthened by the battles it has won. In its purest form, it is incurable and contagious. As I looked around the room from the podium and spoke of it, I saw it. I was in its midst.

While a story about my path must include my beloved Cheryl and Nancy - the heartbreak of loss, the solitude of grief, the rising of hope of new romance and, without doubt, the dress Nancy wore to a Latin dance class in the spring of 2001- Man, that dress was something else - it is Bob and Norma Pryor who deserve the ultimate salute. Simply put, they have shown the way. My siblings and I were raised in a home where love and dance and laughter resided, where we bore witness to the power of love and the light it could shine into the world. I told the people at the Sweetheart Banquet as they moved on to their coffee and chocolate lava cake.

After finishing the talk and another helping of Strawberry Pretzel Salad, Nancy and I said our goodbyes and headed home, stopping by Kroger for a bag of dog food, a gallon of milk and some ice cream for Cori. We used one buggy.