Author: Eddie

Darling Sylvia,  I celebrated Labor Day by taking our seven year old grandson in the truck for a boys-only adventure. We took our 10% off coupon to Lowe’s and purchased a steel cart for my Troy-Bilt mower. My jaw clenched when I discovered the cart was in a box which declared blithely “30 minutes assembly required.” I sensed  do-overs on the horizon.

It was readily apparent that the boy was really up for some quality put-it-together time. The kit included 380 nuts, bolts and lock washers. After three hours and lots of good man-to-man talk, I discovered that you and our five year old granddaughter had invaded our man cave. As we prepared to bolt the tail gate on to the cart assembly, you quietly said that perhaps the base of the cart was upside down. The two inch gap in the tail gate assembly indicated that you might have a point. Unlike my reactions in my thirties, after 50 years of loving you, I paused and said we would return to the job another time and do it right.

When our blow-ups occur and it gets hot in the kitchen we have learned to cool down and then say “I am sorry and please let’s have a do-over.” Thank you for teaching me that an occasional do-over (even redoing the thirty bolts on the garden cart) is a sign of strength in our relationship rather a sign of failure. I am grateful for the past do-overs and the ones I am sure I will need in the future.

Love,  Eddie Bert

Darling Sylvia,
I vividly remember our first fight in the fall of 1967. We were leaving Tyler Dining Hall. The fight started when you stated the obvious; “It’s your attitude – Eddie!” I laughed and shared with the young married resident advisors of Mitchell Hall approaching on the sidewalk that it was ‘my attitude.’ They joined me in my mirth.
What I did was wrong in so many ways. I had heard ‘your attitude’ from Mrs. Stripe (Spanish teacher), Bruce Smith (basketball coach), Denny Stoltz (football coach), my mother, and now I was hearing it from the person that would become the most important person in my life. With so many important people in my life in agreement, I realized that my attitude did need to improve.
At 20, I had not mastered the skill of straight talk. I had not (1) sensed (seen the hives on your neck) , (2) I had not identified how I felt (a 20 year old defensive end in 1967 did not have feelings), (3) I thought absurdly that everything I did was from my great intellect, (4) I wanted to be close to you and (5) I had brought others into what you had privately said. My action had not matched my wishes, and you had been humiliated in public by the boy you loved.
After 49 years of wanting to be close to you, I am still struggling with the skills that make up straight talk. I do a lot better with feelings (yes, I do have them and now can name them occasionally), I sometimes still have a problem identifying what I intend or want to achieve (which is to be a better man and to be closer to you), and I still may act like an idiot. Have patience; our work is not yet done. I am still a work in progress.
This letter is a very belated and public repair attempt. And, in the present, I am very sorry that I got so pissed off at you Thursday when the roofers came just as we sat down to a supper of your wonderful eggplant pizza.

Love you, Doll,

Eddie Bert

Darling Sylvia,

On the eve of returning to Grayling for my 50th high school reunion, I have been thinking a lot about the boy that left Grayling and the man that you helped me to become.

Grayling like many rural small towns was a warm and safe place to be. People knew who I was, who my people were, and when Tom and Ruth’s good boy, Eddie, skipped from the Southside School in the second grade. It really did take a village. They knew me and my place. Granddad raised kids and stones on the banks of the Maple River. The expectation was that we take the next step up the educational and economic ladder. We were to become teachers, preachers, doctors or lawyers. Because of sharing the bass section in choir with Doc Allison, I added scientist to the list. Fortunately, my older brother Joe became the preacher. As the fourth child, Mom’s expectation had been reduced to my becoming a good person who would not embarrass the family.

In the fall of 1965, I was desperate to get out of “safe” Grayling. Little did I know that Grayling, and the things that I learned there, would always be a part of the boy within me. Some of my understandings of the world were worth keeping. Some had to be unlearned.

When I arrived at Alma College, I had a new me to create. Unfortunately, some of my drive was powered by the “better than” syndrome that took another forty years to discard. The new me was nurtured in Drs. Oltz, Kapp, Eyer and Edgar’s biology classrooms and Denny Stoltz’s football practice fields.

I was also in search of a beautiful bright girl to share my love of family, flowers, animals and faith. In bonehead chemistry, I found you. I knew I was really in this thing called love after a date at Lumberjack Park when I realized that you loved me more than I loved me. I had no idea what a wonderful challenging couple journey we would have. We were two lead horses who had to give up the need to be right or to have the last word. I had to learn that compromise was not an evil thing. I had to discover that your request to listen to you was not an invitation to fix. I had to learn more about the child I had brought from Grayling and to honor and cherish the child you brought from Grosse Pointe Park. It’s been a fine ride these last 46 years, and I look forward to a future in which we learn more about each other. I love you.

Eddie Bert

My darling, Sylvia,

Last week, while we were trying to find private space to celebrate our 46th anniversary, I came to the realization that my love for you is an action word that changes as the externals of our complicated life change.

In my 19th year, my love was taking you for a pizza at Sam’s or a twenty minute break before curfew. In my 22nd year, it was washing your beautiful to your waist hair in our old fashioned deep kitchen sink. At 27, it was walking our daughter and softly singing old Kingston Trio songs to her. When I was 35, it was learning that vacuuming was really important. When I was 42, it was holding in my arms a sick and troubled son. When I was 50, I discovered that emptying the dishwasher somehow had become very important to you. At 56, I discovered that singing “Buffalo Gals, Won’t you Come Out Tonight?” with a confused Mom as we took her home after dinner was love. When I was 64, love was saying I was open to your retiring early. At 67, love was saying, “Let’s go to Tuscany; I can put off buying the tractor.” At 68, love is “I’ll keep the grandchildren; you go to your meeting.”

Love, let me tell you; the ways of my loving have changed, but the fact of my love remains. Your love touches my soul daily.

Eddie