By the time Trish entered my life, I was no longer the young man who had married the first time. I was fifty-five years old. Life had taught me a great deal. Some of those lessons had been expensive. I had learned about careers. I had learned about failure. I had learned about divorce. And I had learned that two people can care for one another and still be traveling in different directions. With Trish, something was different from the beginning. We were traveling in the same direction.
The Same Faith
Trish and I shared the same religious beliefs. That became the foundation of our relationship. There was no continuing struggle between us over the Sabbath or our basic understanding of Scripture. We could worship together. We could study together. We could keep God's Sabbath and Holy Days together. We understood marriage as something more than an agreement between two people. It was also a commitment before God. That distinction became increasingly important to me. I had already learned that marriage would be tested. Sometimes severely.
Feelings alone are not enough to carry two people through every test. Trish and I had something deeper holding us together.
Dance Lessons
Right after we married, I was living in a trailer in Clute, finishing the last three years before I would retire. I lived in the trailer during the week and came home to Trish on the weekend. Trish was living in the Montgomery, Texas area. Every week, I drove to League City for dance lessons so that I could dance with her. I had spent much of my life playing music for other people to dance. Now I was learning to dance with the woman who had become my wife.
We danced. We played tennis. We traveled. Each year, our observance of God's Feast days took us to different places. We built a home and a life together. It was not simply that we loved each other. We liked being together. And underneath all of it was something neither of my previous marriages had possessed in the same way: We were spiritually united.
Our Covenant
Trish and I understood marriage as a covenant with each other and with God. That shared commitment would carry us through changes in health and circumstances that neither of us could have anticipated.