September's Song Is Always Sweet
September has always been a big month in my life.
The end of summer and the beginning of fall brings more changes to my life than any other. It is my personal mystical time of transition.
My parents were both born in September. My grandmothers, two of the leading muses of my life, each died in September.
I usually started a school year in September. My dad died in my arms in 1969, one September morning when his big ol� heart gave out.
I suppose it�s only natural I�d be writing this kind of love letter to you in September.
The biggest September date is my marriage. This Friday marks 27 years; 27 on the 27th. It must be some kind of special commemoration Hallmark hasn�t yet got ahold of.
Call it a magical marker.
To start with, I cannot believe Patti has put up with me all these years. If you�ve met me, you know I have this nervous energy which can wear folks out. She is the calm amid the storm, the rock on which my skittery emotions can rest.
We have had a carnival ride of a life, with a jazz soundtrack. Lots of highs, lots of lows. She has patiently worked with me on all the job transitions, from steel mills to the foreign hills of Tennessee (we were forever just Yankees visiting for awhile there to the home folks) to newspapers across Indiana, to here and now.
In the teen queen�s first five years of life we moved five times, for instance. Most folks don�t move their households that much in a lifetime.
Along for the ride � though certainly not for all of it � has been two magnificent daughters, Meghan and Mikayla. Patti picked both names. I agreed, as usual bowing to her superior judgment.
We have had three wogs, all miniature dachshunds, all named Ginger. There is a Ginger in almost every page of the photo albums. I�ve already told you about the cat.
Patti has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. She had it when I met her. That didn�t matter then and doesn�t matter now.
It is a cumbersome disease. It affects the way we walk, the things we can do, the mobility of the family. But not so you�d notice.
When I see her, I still see the beautiful young woman I married. I see the life partner I had dreamed about, the person who knows me better than I know myself and the one who can berate me from inside when I need it.
Sure we argue. It would be a weird world if we did not.
But I�d say there have been more times without arguments than with. Our story together is a complex one.
And it is still being written.
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