LETTERS: TWO MARRIAGES: BEGINNING AND END

To the editor:

This past weekend I was privileged to witness two of life's most powerful experiences. I shared in the beginning of a marriage and in the ending of one.

On Saturday evening my husband and I were honored to be counted among the "grandparents" at the wedding of a special young lady and her bridegroom. We watched his face glow with that special pride one shows when he loves someone so dearly.

We caught our breath as she came down the aisle on her dad's arm, every inch the beautiful bride. Of course, thoughts of when she was a little girl visiting us crowded into our hearts. How she hated having the tangles brushed out of her curls, and how she loved pancakes, and how she stood on tiptoes to put her special ornament on our Christmas tree.

She touched our lives in many happy ways. And how she was repeating her solemn vows of marriage, a grown-up young lady ready and eager to begin her new life.

Then on Monday morning I saw a marriage of 63 years come to a close.

I was called to the room of a patient who also happened to be an old friend. She was dying.

As I stepped inside the room, I saw her husband sobbing as if his heart was breaking. And it was. I felt the pain all the way across the room. He was losing his mate, his best friend for 63 years.

The sadness was too much. The chaplain, the niece, the nurse and I left the room so he could say goodbye. As we left, he picked up her comb and started combing her hair. "I want her to look nice," he said. "She always looked so pretty."

We heard his hard, rasping sobs all the way out in the hall. Soon their family doctor arrived, and I saw him sit down on the edge of the bed, take the older man's hand and spend some time reassuring him that yes, her little body was worn out and yes, he knew her husband had taken very good care of her. It was the reassurance the older man needed. He let her go.

Tears welled up in the young doctor's eyes as he left the room. "You know," he said, "she was one of my favorites too."

After they all left and as I went back to my office to start my day's work, I thought, so this is what life is. We're here to share the happy and the sad times, to give love and comfort and be loved and comforted.

Life is never as long as we hope. Sixty-three years wasn't as long as the older couple wanted for their marriage, and 63 years won't be long enough for the newlyweds.

But it's all we have, so we need to make every day count.

MARY SPELL

Cape Girardeau