13 years ago Mark and I were going to get our marriage license on Tuesday, September 11th. All government offices were closed that day. He taught me the difference between worry and fear. This is what he wrote... Of War and Angels By Mark Humphreys We sit in the waiting room, a cold, white-walled enclosure with bad lighting and an old linoleum floor. We have just filled out our application for our marriage license and we’re waiting for our names to be called so we can sign the finalized document. There are maybe two dozen other chairs in the room, all empty. We’re the only ones here. Maybe no one else is thinking of love today. I look at Melissa, the precious soul whose life I cannot wait to join with my own. She looks at me and smiles. Her eyes, like mine, are swollen from tears—some from joy at the occasion, most from sadness and rage from two days of witnessing unrelenting hell on our television. It’s Thursday, September 13, 2001, just three weeks and two days before our wedding; a day we’ve been planning for over a year. It’s almost here, and today is the day we’d set aside on our calendars to go to the County Recorder’s office to get our license, long before anyone had any idea that this particular box on the calendar would be just two days into a newer and more dangerous world. We came here today more out of a need to force ourselves into a semblance of normality than anything else. We have hardly slept since Monday night. I brush my hand against hers. Melissa stares straight ahead. Aren’t you scared? she asks the empty chairs across the room. The question reverberates against the walls and leaps back at us like a boomerang. We look at each other. No, I say. And I mean it. I’m terrified, she almost whispers. And I know she means it. We met at a time of life when neither of us thought we had any capacity—or any desire—to be someone else’s spouse. We’d both loved hard and lost hard in our youth, had learned from our pain, and moved on to lead what we each believed were whole, self-sustaining lives—alone. And yet, once we met, no matter how many obstacles the world (or each of us) put in our way, the strong, unspoken bond we share only got stronger. Once we acknowledged what could not be denied, we gave in to it with zest and immense faith. It is a faith which refuses to fade. It is a strong foundation to what we both know will be an unbreakable partnership. Melissa is a comedy writer, a born cynic with a comedian’s dark eye for human ridiculousness. She can make me laugh with a simple raised eyebrow or two-word comeback. She innately understands the foolishness of human nature, and has saved me more times than I can count from my own insufferable seriousness. But since Tuesday morning there has been little laughter. We have witnessed, live and in color, our country being invaded and pitilessly attacked, and felt the kind of anger and fear we may not even have known was possible. Like every other American, Melissa has been praying for a safe and secure future, and for the end to the evil which has been thrust upon her homeland. And she naturally feels fear. I wish I could put into words for her the truth I know in my very soul—that all will be well; that all is well even now. Don’t get me wrong. I worry about a lot of things. About the war that is about to come. About the world we will live in five years, or even one year, from now. About the usual things people about to marry worry about—money, mostly, but also about whether to have children, and if so how many. But these are worries, they are not fears. The human capacity for pain is great; our ability to fight when threatened is monumental. But above all we are defined by the quiet, common promises we make to each other in our daily lives to take care of each other and to love each other. It shows itself in a long line of people patiently standing for hours to donate blood to people they do not and never will know; in the cement- and ash-soaked face of a firefighter who has just put his life at risk to save a life; in a group of cheering strangers gathered on a street corner with hand-made signs thanking a passing group of cleanup crews heading into harm’s way to begin the long re-building process. And yes, in the simple promise to love, honor and cherish one other person for eternity. In these acts we prove to ourselves that we are greater than our enemies. In these acts we fight every bit as hard as we do—and will—with our armed forces. In these acts we become angels. And so Melissa and I will marry. We will be faithful to each other and to our commitment. We will face fear. We will help fight this war however we can. We will be good neighbors and good citizens. And we will laugh. A lot. Together. Our names are called by the clerk behind the window. He presents us with our license, where we see our names together for the first time on an official document, binding us legally as well as spiritually. I feel a rush of excitement, and immense love. We sign the document, and as we walk away Melissa smiles at me, melting my heart as her smile always does. As we drive off, we decide to find an American flag to put on our front porch; they are sold out everywhere we go. Eventually we go home and finally fall asleep in each others’ arms. We dream of angels.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 15:49:01 +0000
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