Dearest Rachel –
So… later this afternoon, I head over to Jenn’s place and hop a ride with her and Bill to tonight’s wedding. I still have yet to try on a jacket, tie on a tie, and write a check to the happy couple as a gift (I’m not one for shopping, after all, and honestly, at this point, the money would better serve for whatever it is they want. Sure, they won’t be able to point to this or that thing and say “Cousin Randy got that for us,” but is that the sort of thing I want to be remembered for by them? Do I want to be remembered by them at all?) At least I don’t have to stick around too long, as Bill needs to get enough rest tonight to show up in the booth tomorrow morning (as do I, for that matter, but I’m not in control of when the car leaves the reception hall), so there’ll be no time for dancing after dinner.
Still, I wonder what will be going on at tonight’s reception. It’s been a long time since I was last at one of these things – I think the last one we went to was for one of Kerstin’s sons (which was on relatively short notice for us), and I haven’t been to one since the accident – I don’t know if the same traditions take place these days. Oh, not stuff like the bouquet and garter; those are so much a part of the ritual that they might as well be considered sacramental. I’m thinking about what gets said publicly to and for the benefit of the happy couple. The toasts describing the past for each of them as individuals, and advice for what they ought to do to best appreciate their lives together; that sort of thing.
Of course, I’m in no position to contribute to the former; in fact, I had to ask the folks about their last name, as I’d have to include it on the check I still need to write. At any reunions, everyone is Cousin This or Aunt So-and-So – no one uses last names, despite the fact that, thanks to weddings such as this one (but not this one in particular, as Cousin Keith is the relative here), not everyone in the extended family has the same last name. But despite being on a first-name basis with everybody in the family, it ironically ends up that we’re so otherwise unfamiliar with each other that we don’t know from surnames, let alone any other things about them worth relating in a wedding toast.
But as for the latter, well…
Now, I’d like to think I have plenty of experience and insight as to what a relationship needs, especially given how we managed so well. Lars tells me about the patients he has dealt with over the course of his career; they are a fairly broad, representative sample of humanity. And, because of the professional relationship he’s had with them, he knows things about them that most people wouldn’t necessarily – one tells one’s doctor certain things they wouldn’t to even their friends (as their friends aren’t expected to be able to diagnose and cure the various problems they face). He’s told me about the various couples he’s dealt with, and how few of them truly seem to have any sort of bond apart from sheer inertia. What we had together, while maybe not the stuff of storybooks or fairy tales, was far beyond what the vast majority of couples ever get to experience. So perhaps I might have a few things to say that might be useful for the happy couple.
On the other hand, I think I’m just smart enough to know that I don’t have a right to consider myself smart enough to be handing out advice like that. At the very least, ours may have been a relatively unique situation, and anything we did – or might have done – wouldn’t work with a different pair of people in a different time and circumstance.
Then again, if my experience is all I have to go on, maybe I should just fall back on it. It’s not as if anyone else is likely to give them this sort of advice:
Keith, Julia… this may seem like a weird suggestion, but hear me out. Try to make a habit of this… write things down, by hand, whenever possible, so the other knows it’s your words, your effort. It doesn’t have to be every day, and it doesn’t have to be long, but record your thoughts about each day with each other.
You may think you have a million days together, and that each one is going to be very much the same – and very much as good – as the next. That’s not even close to being true. I had barely ten thousand, and my parents (who, by the way send their regards, and their regrets) have yet to reach even twenty-five thousand. And those days will be different, vastly different, when you’re our age from the ones you’re experiencing now. Will you remember those days once you get there?
Think about how much – or rather, how little – you remember from your childhood; there are a lot of gaps from back then, aren’t there? That’s why I say you need to write things down. One day, you’re going to have forgotten many of the things that were important to you back when you were this age.
Don’t bother trying to write down the bad things, the things that went wrong, the things that annoy you. You’ll remember them well enough; at best, it’s simply that the misadventures in life are the things that are the most memorable; at worst, those become ammunition for battles that aren’t worth fighting between yourselves. The bad memories are the sorts of things best left forgotten (if at all possible). We tend to think of the good things in life as the way they’re supposed to be, and consider them as ordinary and normal as the air we breathe. But they aren’t, and you’ll need to remember them for future reference. The little things you do together, the strangely reassuring words said to one another… and just who you are to each other. The easiest way to remember is to write it down.
And while you make a practice of this, always bear in mind that your partner might be doing the same. Do your best to be the person, to say the words, to do the thing that they’re recording as being significant for the day. In any situation in your life together, always assume they got the short end of the stick, and do your best to make it up to them for it.
One day, only one of you will be left on earth, and you will read the words that the other wrote down about their life, about the things that happened to them… about you. Those words, in their own hand, will be the greatest treasure they can leave behind for you, more than any possession you two shared. Things are just things; they may have stories behind them that you’ll treasure, but words from the heart and hand have value so far beyond that, which no amount of money can buy. Treasure your time, and do your part to help them save up that treasure as well.
Letters to Rachel 