A Fellow Traveller

Dinner was finished and conversation was floating around the table. This had been my first big meal since the accident, and it felt good to serve; to actually do something once again for my whole family, parents included. I left the cleanup to sit and rest for a while since my foot was beginning to ache. I knew the dishes could wait. All the adults had moved to comfortable seating in the family room. and now my husband came to join us with his coffee in hand. He surveyed the room to find that the only seat left was a small wooden chair on the far side of the room. To reach it, he would have to crawl over a sea of legs. "Why don't you grab a kitchen chair and sit here?" I suggested. "But I was going over there." He looked at the chair by the window. "But this will be easier." "No it won't. I'll have to carry it." And so went our dialogue until he sat down with the kitchen chair, saying something about doing it because he loved me. I ...

It was the fourth of July twenty-two years ago when our morning wedding was followed by an early afternoon reception. After celebrating with family and friends, we headed off to Toronto to begin our honeymoon. We recall being hungry and finding a Red Lobster Restaurant across the street. Last night we gathered once again at a Red Lobster, only this time with four teenagers and two sets of parents. It was nice to celebrate in this way, since it is a rare event for all our kids to be home at the same time. We were also celebrating the realization that when you marry an individual, you can't really separate them from their family of origin. You leave your parents to marry, cleaving to someone else and forming a new family unit. Yet that person you marry comes with a whole set of expectations and needs arising from how they were raised. It seems that parental influence continues under the surface, whether we are aware of it or not. We've moved past romantic love as being the basis ...