Couples

 

When Auntie Maud died, her husband, Uncle Archer, stopped living although he continued breathing another few months.

The elderly couple had just returned to their New Jersey home from visiting his sister, my grandmother, in Massachusetts, a twice-yearly pilgrimage in their black Buick, which had replaced his last black Buick, which had replaced all previous black Buicks.

He was a perfect definition of the words curmudgeon and crotchety. My brother and I dreaded those visits and were always happy to see them go. We were told to be not on our best behaviour but to be on perfect behaviour. For our grandmother’s sake, we tried.

I can just imagine the pressure he put on his underlings where he was an executive for the telephone company, a monopoly back then. In those pre-feminine revolutionary days, he only woman working for him would have been his secretary whom I imagined bringing him coffee in a special cup, exact temperature, etc.

Auntie Maud had gone upstairs immediately on their return home and fallen asleep never to wake. He found her shortly after.

He adored her and often drove her crazy with his insistence she needed a sweater even on a hot day and brushing her chair before she sat down. Often, she swallowed her protests at his hovering and ignored his directions once he could no longer see what she was doing.

On receiving the phone call of my aunt’s demise, my mother, grandmother, brother and I piled into our non-black, non-Buick for the drive to New Jersey. For me with a family, who seldom left town, this was an adventure, but for my grandmother a sad trip for she adored her big brother and sister-in-law.

We found a different man inhabiting Uncle Archer’s body, a man greatly diminished, a man who no longer massaged petty details. He only found the strength to fight with his daughter-in-law, who wanted him to rest while he wanted to spend every minute at the funeral home with his wife. He won.

That daughter-in-law took over his care and feeding, going to his house to clean and prepare meals. She complained he seldom ate anything and only sat, saying little and doing less.

I’ve often thought of Uncle Archer and Auntie Maud as a devoted couple, and I wondered and wonder what makes a couple work in whatever format they’ve established. I look at friends whose marriages have survived decades. Some seem like good friends. Others act as if they’ve come this far they might as well stay to the end. I know from conversations some of these marriages have survived infidelity, child problems, money woes. Some bicker constantly. Some seem like a single unit sharing everything with a certain contentment.

With 41 years of single bliss, I never wanted to join the ranks of married couples until my Soul Mate came into my life. Over a decade of our lives together, I understand how couples who love each other manage the ups and downs of daily life. 

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