Caddo Veil’s “Not Meant to Last” reminded me that today is the anniversary of my first marriage. The one that is remembered because two wonderful children were born of this marriage. They were meant to be; the marriage was not meant to last.
He was too young and had not moved through many young ladies; maybe he would never move through enough young ladies to keep him feeling young and virile. Those almost 15 years were good; those 15 years were bad; those 15 years were just …

That Saturday morning so many years ago was magical. Mom and Dad were alive; Daddy all set to give me away. My mom had made my wedding suit; I had chosen yellow roses and emerald-green accessories not opting for the long white dress and all the fuss that goes with big weddings. I had chosen the money because we would need it for my new husband to finish his college years; I had already graduated and was teaching.

It was a long Catholic wedding; I had converted leading up to the wedding. No one in my family were Catholic, therefore had not a clue to what was going on until the priest, Father Cochran, began to perform the traditional wedding vows….the one where you promise “for better or worse”….some people actual mean it when they recite those words before God and their family. We didn’t.

 

When we left after the private family reception, in my white 1955 Chevy, the rain started. We did not ever have a honeymoon nor a vacation. We went a long way….all the way from Jackson to Poplarville… to our apartment where he would begin school the next week and I would begin teaching down the road.

I could not cook then and cannot cook now. My best memory as well as the funniest was baking a cake. Having received a baking pan with a plastic lid, I proceeded to pour the cake batter and after careful reading the instructions on the pan placed the plastic lid back on and placed the would be cake in the oven. To my husbands credit, he did not think I should have placed the plastic lid back on because he thought it would melt. Of course, I did not think so, so on it baked. When the time was up and I looked in the oven, there was a perfectly beautiful piece of plastic art (which we kept as an ashtray) with some cake around same.

I wonder where the art piece was lost; which move; which house; what year? Perhaps it was not meant to last either, at least not in my life.