Category: Marriage Enrichment

Dearest Eddie,

You moved a lot of flowers today. Specialty cut flower grower is a descriptive mouthful but I prefer to call you a purveyor of smiles. As I watch our teenaged granddaughter climb the silks this evening, you may still be asleep in your chair. You earned the nap after cutting flowers for 12 hours yesterday and being the face of Dr. Rob’s Garden at our farmers’ market all day. I would bet though that you got up and went back to your garden. Why?

You told me you were mentally reframing your why as you worked this week after Mint scolded you for overspending your Seeds budget, again. I know that little Eddie loved the plant hustle of Robertsons’ Greenhouse of yore, and Papa Eddie is not raking in the bucks. I am happy that you are occupied with something you love, organized in your days, and, certainly, exercised—all good things. Watching you, I have decided that smiles are your real why.

Flowers make you smile. I love to hear you call from the garden, “Come see.” You delight in bringing smiles to our life. Orchids to the dorm, corsages to dances, calendula in Calgary, caladium in Dallas, the fence rose war in Bartlesville; flower memories are part of our glue. Now, it is orchids on the mantel, roses in the kitchen, larkspur in the bathroom, and even zinnias in cut glass in the “event quality” porta-jons at our anniversary bash. Flowers and your smiles go together in my life, and I am grateful!

Your flowers make many people smile. In our market community, people react emotionally to the beautiful things you bring. Even if they don’t always buy, they stop, comment, enjoy, share memories. We hear tales of “my grandmother’s spider plants,” “my dad’s glads,” “the dahlias we had back home.” Your flowers access the flowers of memory, and people smile. Little kids get freebies from Dr. Rob, and often they return, calling you by name. Customer families come by the garden to visit and pick. Former students appear with mates and kids and dogs. New residents make friends around the flower stall. People with whom we taught VBS many years ago show up and share smiles once more.

Your flowers allow your customers to gift others. “My grandma will love these; she raised me.” “I’m decorating for a wedding.” “It’s dance recital day.” “My cousin loves flowers, and she can’t garden anymore.” “My wife really loved the bunch I bought from you last week.” “I’m getting one for my neighbor and one for me.” And they smile.

I am delighted that smiles have become what you would call a worthy why for all your hard work.  I am sure we will still count our dollars like you did the quarters in the box when you were a child. We will still be scolded by Mint. We will still lament the greenhouse propane bill. But we have a new shared understanding that the smiles generated by the beauty from your garden are  a perfectly adequate why for all the dedication you give. I love you, purveyor of smiles.

Sylvia

Darling Sylvia,

You were then and are now my only one.  It was in the fall of 1967, standing with you in my arms in front of Newberry Hall, that I first realized I had found my only one.  This incredibly beautiful, bright, strong-willed girl loved God, her family, nature and, most amazingly, me.  You were my only one.

Last Saturday night, we took ourselves out for a post-Covid ’20-’21 date; the Rome Braves were meeting the Bowling Green Hot Rods at State Mutual Stadium. It was a perfect evening for us to try playing in a crowd once again. The anthem was sung; fireworks were on deck for post-game. The sun set through pink clouds over the river. The musical chairs kids got dizzy, and the protesting coach was ejected from the game. We were surrounded by multigenerational families, groups of friends, and other couples enjoying being together again with the Great American Pastime. The temperature was warm, and everything was chill.

And then, wham, we had one of those Holy Ground, take your breath away, moments. “The Circle of Life” began to play, the Simba Cam panned the stands, and, all around us, mothers, dads, and grandparents lifted babies and toddlers overhead, presenting them to the world as princes and princesses. There was a catch in my throat when I realized what they were doing. The humanity of it all! I reached for your hand and looked into your eyes and found tears that                                                              matched mine running down your cheeks. After 54 years, my tender-hearted Alma Lassie, you still are my only one.

                                                  Love,          Eddie Bert

Dear Eddie,

Spring Break in St. Augustine! Even with Covid carefulness, we did not forget our dedication to a two night minimum getaway. We celebrate the couple time of shorter dates, for sure, but it takes that long for us to really relax. You insist that we set the quarterly goal, but you also insist that we follow through. Thank you for that persistence.

Spring Break took working together. Planning and carrying out a plan makes for conversations that are out of our ordinary interests. There is planning what to do together, there are the actual trips, and there are the shared memories to revisit. All three contribute to our shared history, our couple glue.  Our planning starts with joint idea popping. Then it is my turn as the dot and diddle girl to visit the websites, check out the maps, find the lodging, and survey possible things to do. Your job is to keep bugging until I get a plan. Your question is often, “How are we coming?” Then, we get to take off.

Spring Break fit our pattern. First, we got quiet. This time the quiet was in full amazement that we were actually “on the road,” not having been “off the corner,” as your mother used to say, since October.

On the road, our Spring Break chatter began and mixed new experiences  with old memories. The further south we got, the more south Georgia bloomed; the more the red maples and the yellow Jessamine winding in the treetops showed their faces. Do you remember?…the Savannah meeting, the Okefenokee field trip? On arrival, we had our expected last scuffle over traffic, directions, u-turns, all much simplified by GPS…and lightened by the memories. Do you remember?…San Francisco in the dark with the firetrucks at the hotel?…the Kleinschmidt Grade, and “Here’s Johnnie?”  And we did find our hotel, fed ourselves and chilled.

Waking, we activated our Spring Break plan with travel brochures, maps, and the weather app. In St. Augustine, we wanted to explore the Castillo San Marcos and the old town, and we wanted beach time and shrimp. We started with a city tour, your forever go to,—let someone else do the driving.  Do you remember?…D.C., Baltimore, Seville, Montelcino, Quebec                      ? Hopping on and off, exploring, chattering, eating, and, oh look, Sylvia’s forever go to, a cruise–a little history, a lot of sun and wind, and snuggling tight for warmth. We could almost hear harbor pirates growling, “Covid be hanged!” And off for the shrimp tacos. Waking again, we headed to the beach for more sun and wind, not warm, but, wrapped in jeans and jackets, we walked and basked and enjoyed a picnic with an expectant gull. Heading north toward home, we felt delighted with our experiences and with each other.

Thank you, dear heart, for prioritizing us. Yes, we have indeed checked off our two night getaway for winter quarter. I am looking forward to another Spring Break run with you real soon when Michigan comes out of the snow.

Much love,  Sylvia

Darling Sylvia,

COVID-19 has changed our language. Having a safe bubble and a safe pod have become the “new normal.” But what is so new about normal?  Having an Alma College lassie and a cat or cats in my bubble has been normal for 53 years.  I think that having a daughter, a son in love and three grands in my pod is normal, although I suspect that my sixteen-year-old granddaughter has slipped a boyfriend into my pod, but that is a topic for another old man’s rant.

Being in your bubble means living close to you. I like being close to you.  In fact, I have liked it a lot for a long time. I think reading detective novels in front of the fire, emptying the dishwasher, making the bed beside you, and having roses on the breakfast table is normal.  I think it is normal that at one o’clock I lay down for a reposo nap with a grandma on my right and a black and white tomcat on my left, both needing to be cuddled. I think that a cat at the door waiting to be let out and ten minutes later a cat at the window waiting to be let in is normal. I think that sharing orchids all year long is normal.  I think setting a pretty suppertime table is normal.  I have even learned that it is normal for me to need a 30-minute WW Walk to the Beat while you are exercising at Curves.

Some things are normal for me; other things are not normal.  Zumba in the kitchen at 9 o’clock in the morning still is not normal.  Zoom church service and Detroit Lions football with cardboard fans in the stands is not normal.  That you still love this seventy-three-year-old Delt Sig defensive end makes you not normal, but please, please, please do not stop now!

Love you, Eddie Bert

Dear Eddie:

When I was growing up, I was Big Sister to three little brothers. Mom would tell them to do something, and I would immediately repeat her words. She would get ticked. Dad would say, “Peat and Repeat.” Mom would say, “Peat is perfectly adequate.” I would attempt to shut up. Repeating was not my best trait.  Lately, however, I am mindful that many things do bear repeating. Sometimes, that means repeating words, but often it means repeating actions. In this holiday season, our ritual repeating grows and celebrates our memories. It is part of the glue that makes us a couple and all of us into a family.

We repeat as we prepare and celebrate holidays together. We are stubborn about celebrating Thanksgiving before beginning Christmas preparation. Our pumpkins mix with garland and lights in the first weeks of December. We hang the greens at church and at home, we set up the Advent wreath, and we follow the liturgy each week. Our grandchildren expect that we light candles as well as eat daily chocolates. We repeat the stories that surround the things and practices. The liturgy comes from Bartlesville FUMC from Christmas 1980. The kids acolyte at church and problem-solve that, even though the refillable candles don’t burn down, the first purple candle is opposite the third pink Joy candle. There is the proper way “we” do things.

You and I first, then our children, and now our grands see that our traditions are tied to memories and shift to include new members and new memories in the repeating. Little Bear and his family have resided in the quilted “house” on our kitchen door in the month of December for many many years. Little Bear has looked for Christmas over and over again. Grown kids afar may be told or ask where Little Bear looked for Christmas on any given day. This year, Little Bear went walk-about. He was missing when Aryn went to move him on December 22. We looked everywhere. I tried not to panic, or as you well know I can, “go Freaknik.” I made up a silly story in my head about what his parents were thinking. I pondered sewing a new bear.  Thankfully, Little Bear was found in the laundry room in the back of the house, collapsed face-down on top of the sunflower seed bucket. Go figure. We all speculated about what in the world happened.  I do know that Little Bear’s wanderlust will repeat in Christmas story-telling for another generation. We will laugh together in the repeating.

So, in the afterglow of Christmastide, I ask of you darling partner, please keep repeating that you love me, keep repeating and rehashing our trips, our holidays, our giggles of our many years. I love you.

Sylvia

Darling Sylvia,

I feel the need to slow down in order to make our moments last. I remember the moment in the fall of 1966 in front of Newberry Hall,  when I wrapped you up in my arms and kissed you for the first time.  Last Saturday, at Pitchtree Café, as we waited to sell the first of Doctor Rob’s Garden Bouquets,  I realized I was feeling the same flush of emotions that I had felt so many years ago.  You were snuggled in my arm pit with the blanket wrapped around your legs.  It felt oh so familiar.  I was amazed and am still amazed at how your body fits perfectly into the curve of mine.  I wanted to slow down and make that moment last.  In this incredibly fast paced world we live in, our moments of closeness pass all too quickly. I desperately need to slow down and savor each one.

Moments ago, I held your hand as you gave birth to Charity and Nate.  It was only a moment ago, when you held me after we got the phone call from Joe that Dad had died in the car accident.  It was only a moment ago, when we stood outside the maternity window at Saint Mary’s and were introduced to Abby, our first grandchild.  It was only a moment ago,  that we soaked our feet in the volcanic hot spring in Tuscany. Moments pass quickly; I want to slow down and notice them.

I want to appreciate those moments, at the grocery store, at church, at Wally’s World or waiting in line to vote when I am aware of your presence beside me.  I want to slow down and  live every moment with you in the now.  Our now is very good.  Our bodies may be wearing out, our time may be limited, but, when we cuddled Saturday, in the chilly October morning air of that parking lot, it felt even better than the very first time. I want to slow down and celebrate more moments with you.

Love you,   Eddie Bert

Dear Eddie:

I heard you singing. I was chilling in the gazebo one morning in July and harkened to your voice coming up from the garden. “And a partridge in a pear tree.” I chortled; you lifted me up, yet again. Your singing expresses your “glass at least half full” approach to life. You are not Pollyanna, but you are positive most of the time. I am thankful for your gift.

I am thankful that your singing family traveled to Grandma’s with hymns and choruses since there was no radio. I am thankful that in your all in one small town k-12 school Peg Milnes was in charge of chorus, glee club and talent shows—your repertoire is awesome. Added was that Mrs. Milnes expected all Methodist teens to sing in the choir at Michelsen Memorial with her and their folks.

I am thankful for the singing in our parenting and grandparenting years. You give us repeated lines, bursts of joy, seldom whole compositions. “Little Champ” from your cornet audition for band, “Choke a cholo cholo cha laylee,” “Mares eat oats, and does eat oats,” “Beautiful Blue Eyes,” “You are my Sunshine.” All the camp choruses resound and set a day’s tone.” This is the Day,” “Revive Us Again.” At how many 6:15 am Cline Store bus stop mornings did you rouse our pack of three, and probably the whole neighborhood, with “Rise and Shine and Get those children out of the muddy muddy?” At least one of the kids would get into it, complete with motions, while the older ones at least grimaced and sometimes deigned to join you. You and I might have dragged up that hill in the dark, but we handheld back home with the sunrise behind us.

Your singing is part of garden season for sure. You are up and at it at daylight. When I get up to fix breakfast, I am often greeted with snatches of song from the twilight. You are out there happily planting, weeding or cutting. At random times of day, I will hear some random sound, and realize Eddie’s singing.

I love you, songbird. You lift me up.

Sylvia

Darling Sylvia,

Thank you for teaching me the names for feelings.

Taxonomy is the science and the art of assigning names. Dr. Kapp at Alma taught me that yellow flowers are not all the same.  The hue and saturation points of the yellows of marsh marigold, Caltha palustris, and black mustard, Brassica nigra, are different.  Those differences allow a pollinator or a neophyte botanist to tell them apart at fifty yards. Dr. Eyer taught me the songs that separate the ordinary Pine Warbler, Dendroica pinus, from the extraordinary Kirtland’s Warbler, Dendroica kirtlandii.  Dr. Sloan taught me the color and textural differences between a fossiliferous brown roofing shale and a lignite. The differences in the rock make for distinctive pollen and spore floras. The names and their meanings that I absorbed from my professors made and make my world more colorful, filled with joyous tones and more physical textures to experience.

Over the last fifty-five years, your lessons in the names and the meanings of feeling words far out rank any learned from my professors.  Names have changed my behavior. When you tell me, “That pinched,” it tells me that I SAID OR DID SOMETHING THAT HURT YOU.  I have to ask myself, “Was it intentional or was I just being stupid?” CLEANING YOUR FISH says that I honor you and that a lady does not need to ruin her nails if a man who cares for her is near.  Your dad always cleaned your mother’s fish; it was not about entrails, but a value placed on his woman.

Grayling’s 501 Ottawa Street men’s dormitory was the Sahara Desert when it came to the names and meanings of feeling words.  Mad or glad was as nuanced as it got.  I had no clue until you came into my life that feelings had color, sounds and textures just like the qualities of the natural things in my world. I had feelings; who would have known?  More importantly, you had feelings that I needed to recognize, honor, and try to understand.  I need to learn and keep learning who I am and who you are in order to know and to be known more fully.

Sylvia, you ring my bells. — Eddie Bert

Dear Eddie: I have always known that you have a special relationship with dirt. I have always enjoyed your being my garden boy and the beautiful things you grow. At the same time, I have done my share of griping about dirt, mud, tracks, and all. Today, I realized that something had shifted in my attitude about you and dirt. (yes, I know it is soil).

Two dirt related things happened this morning. I was fluffing last night’s load of clothes before folding. I knew that load would be followed by yet another day’s load. There would be one set of my clothes and at least three sets of yours. It is plant the garden, get ready for Farmers’ Market season. One set of wet stinky work clothes follows another. They may be too wet even for your taste, but you are also thoughtful enough to decide that they are too muddy to come in for lunch or reposo. Icky clothes; yet, I smiled. And, then, right there inside the back door, between the door and the mat, I spotted one perfect, very distinct, size 11 shoe print on the champagne carpet; yet, I laughed. You are totally comfortable with dirt. I have decided that comfort with dirt is one of your most endearing characteristics.

When I got you, I got Tom Robertson’s greenhouse child. When our two-year-old son was selling “million-dollar petunias,” at Dad’s greenhouse, Pete’s Auntie Ruth said, “Well, Eddie was always the dirtiest little boy in Grayling.”  And so, it continues with you and dirt. When we were courting, I remember a trip to Aunt Nellie’s farm to “get a load of dirt.” It was my first time to really watch you and dirt. No bags from the garden center. You cut sod, broke the blocks apart with your fingers and shook out the dirt. You were patient, meticulous, enthralled. Year after year, I have watched you condition flower beds, lifting bulbs, trenching in compost, planting again. Last week, we took apart the sand box in our yard and moved it to our daughter’s home where the kids reassembled it into a raised bed. Two shoveled Mighty Max bedloads of compost, one of garden dirt and another of sand followed. You tilled it all to uniform consistency ready for planting. I texted our grandson that Papa had brought him dirt for his birthday, and he responded, “Yay!” Auntie Ruth’s jibe hurt your feelings a little bit, but you and dirt are really something wonderful to behold.

I asked myself why I am so much less grumpy about you and dirt. Heck, I’m grinning about you and dirt. I think that growing and sharing beautiful things is a way you care for my love languages. It takes dirt. You make our home beautiful. In the big orchid bloom, there were orchids on the mantel, orchids in the bathroom, orchids in the kitchen. In the vases on the back of the kitchen sink, chives and mint have made way for roses and daisies.  And I experience all of that beauty as your gifts of service, of appreciation, of love.

Our family knows their gifts of dirt, of potting soil, vermiculite, and peat pots never disappoint you. The seedling mixture with coir was perfect for your winter greenhouse babies, and you have repeatedly said so. You and I have been basically at home for seven weeks due to Covid-19. The closest to a quarantine crisis we have had is needing Potting Mix. Trying to limit social distance, I heard you say, “I’m cutting myself off from dirt.” Sure, that really lasted; we stopped for three more bags this morning.

Keep playing in the dirt, darling one. Love, Sylvia

Precious  Sylvia,  We are always better together.  It was in the late summer of 1969; these two recent Alma grads were in a junker with bald tires and a U-Haul trailer in tow. It was a fourteen-hour drive to a place we hadn’t been before. We were scared and hopeful at the same time.  You and I were sure that whatever the future would bring it would be always better together. Grayling was my only frame of reference. Needless to say, it was not sufficient. Together, we shared Sharon Avenue, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and snow that seemed to last forever.  I loved your bravery and belief in us.  Together we laughed, loved, cried, fought and learned the joy of making up. In the first three months, we discovered three-dimensional tic-tac-toe, Milborne, and cribbage.  At Christmas, we broke down and bought a thirteen-inch television.  We watched the Super Bowl and Luscious Lars Anderson of the American Wrestling Association from Aunt Nellie’s rollaway.

Five years later, we left for Calgary.  In the U-Haul truck were a cat, a dog and a four-month-old Charity Jean.  The roads across Saskatchewan showed the bumpy effects of frost heave.  Once again, we were brave but knew that it was going to be always better together.

It is day 20 of social distancing. Today’s excitement was old people’s early hours at Aldi’s.  Among our purchases of essentials were seven rolls of landscape cloth and two bottles of sangria.  The garden is tilled, the greenhouse holds 127 flats of flowers to be planted for the coming season at the Waleska Farmers’ Market.  Our attic is orderly, and the refrigerator spotless.  We have almost acquired the knowledge needed to Zoom with our three grandchildren.  I miss the noise and chaos that they bring into our life.

I am mindful , now more than ever, of how much your smile and sounds bring light and joy into my rather dull life.   Sunday, I told you  about a memory of being nine years old and recovering from viral pneumonia.  I was sick, lonesome and locked inside.  I was looking out the raindrop spattered window of the old white house on the corner of Chestnut and Ottawa and singing “Rain, rain, go away; little Eddie wants to play.”  This crisis will pass. The sun will shine, and we will go outside and play.  I know it is always better together.  Especially if the together is with you.

Love,  Eddie Bert