“Older aging is a time for remembering and weaving together many disparate elements and for integrating these incongruities into a comprehensible whole.”
~ Erik Erikson

“I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older.”
~Michael De Montaigne

Shout, shout, let it all out
These are things I can do without
Come one
I’m talking to you, come on
In violent times, you shouldn’t have to sell your soul
In black and white, they really, really ought to know
~ By The Lumineers

In September I turned to the ripe old age of sixty. What I have learned since the early days; it would have been nice to have had some foresight. Back then, in the mid to late 80s, I was a young bride, full of hope and promises, at 23. Fast forward to sixty, I am an older but wiser lady because of the processes I went through.
I met my former husband at college, and we became fast friends. He had a rental house, a car, a master’s degree, and a ministerial position. We sort of bumped into each at the student center on the college campus. I found out that marriage, at its worst, was subservient slavery. At its best, it is a harmonious bridge. We had some premarital counseling; but I had the feeling the person thought we would not work things out. I remember we had to leave the session because I had to be at work that evening. There were several times I had felt smothered and like a glorified babysitter during the total marriage time.
We married in 1988, and moved to Asheville, NC at the time. His ministerial position had ended; and I had no job prospects on the horizon. We rented a MAC U-Haul truck, and my parents helped us make the move to North Carolina. I remember it being so dark, there was a layer of dirt in the back hallway and dishes were piled in both sink places. The lawns had not been mowed on either side of the city housing; and the husband’s middle sister was out at Pizza Hut with her family; and did not greet us at all at the back door. There were four rooms. Her family had three of them.
We had the master bedroom. His sister had a boy and a girl. From the start, his sister was not supportive of us moving into the house. There were several times where I would come out of the room; and if she was there, she would go off on me. That stress from her, unknowingly took its toll on me. No one from husband’s church at that time had contacted us, soon after we moved; to see how we were doing, and to offer to help move our stuff. I remember having to clean and move at the same time, because the middle sister would just not help us at all.
My parents paid for him to get a AAS degree in nursing. He graduated and got a job at the local hospital in town. That position fizzled out, and then he got another position in a nearby town. I started going to his church in Asheville. I never really felt accepted. I was not retired and probably considered too young. I remember trying to reach out for help to some former church members. I felt like I was pushed aside; and that no one really wanted to help us with anything.
Meanwhile, his health was declining. I was working as a housekeeper and tried to be the dutiful and supportive wife. I would come to the facility where he was staying, pick up his dirty clothes, wash them, and bring them back to him. We ended up having to use his retirement account and then got on his social security for bills. I remember having to ask the Ministry of Help for help in paying the power bill; so, no one would freeze to death in that winter. There were times I felt we were running a halfway house.
There never seemed to be any privacy in the house at all during our marriage. I felt in a way that the middle sister had contributed towards the decline of the marriage. I was working as a housekeeper near the end of the marriage. I spent the meager earnings on food and medicine. Some clues I wished I paid closer attention to: In his rental house, there was a closet full of old papers, from top to bottom, two stacks. I wanted to recycle them; he wanted to save them for a paper drive. He would not
put my name on the house deed. That should have been done when we first moved to Asheville. Another clue or warning was that he had a kidney stone on our honeymoon. That kind of ruined
things on the honeymoon. He went into the hospital. I was new in town and did not know where the local hospital was at all. This was before Google Maps. That event should have alerted me that our marriage was going to end up being defined or not by his health problems. Another clue was that I remember feeling totally consumed by the darkness of the house. It felt like the house had this huge extremely negative vibe. I wished I had listened to the vibe better; and gotten out sooner.
Fast forward to the future of 2025 and beyond: I am still in a much cleaner, healthier and happier place in my life. Sometimes, life has to scream loudly in our faces for us to pay attention to a better place. I have learned that life has and offers hope; but sometimes you have to finally be willing to listen to its perspective. I continue to be amazed at the events and people God places in my life.
With all that I leave you with this ageless hymn of ‘Whispering Hope.”

Whispering Hope - Baraton University Church Choir

May all of God’s blessings shine upon you!

Marci

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