Tessie D

Today is Momma’s and Daddy’s wedding anniversary.

I’m not sure how many of their anniversaries have been happy, but they’ve made it this long together. That has to count for something.

They met when Momma was working at a hospital in Grapevine. One of the nurse’s aides had a son who was in the Army and had come home for a couple weeks from Alabama. It was September, and the aide had her son come up to the hospital to pick her up from work. She introduced Momma to Daddy, and they went on a date to see American Graffiti at the movie theater. They talked on the phone for the next couple weeks, and Daddy invited Momma to come out to Alabama to visit him over Thanksgiving. She flew out, and when he picked her up, he asked her to reach down and find her present under the seat. It was an engagement ring.

Momma flew home after the holiday and planned their wedding for two weeks later since that was the only time off that Daddy could get so close to the holiday. Daddy drove all night from Alabama on December 12th, and they got married on the 14th in a small Methodist church. Momma wore an off-white a-line dress with a lace overlay that she and her aunt, Belle, had made the weekend before. Momma and Daddy had a small reception back at her parents’ house and then, the next morning, got up and drove back to Alabama.

I asked her one time how she’d married someone that she’d only met for one date and then talked on the phone a couple times. Momma said that she just knew that he would take her away from the farm to live some place else, anywhere else. She was already 28 years old, and she’d grown up on a 200-acre farm all her life. She’d gone to school during the week, to church on Sundays, and occasionally to the Stock Yards on Saturday afternoon for .25 cent hamburgers with her daddy. She’d never traveled further than 100 miles down the road before my daddy flew her to Alabama.

Daddy offered her a chance to see the world, and he was nice to her and looked handsome in his dress blues.

“My chance of being happy with him was just as likely as it would be with anyone else.”

And there are moments that I think they still love each other. Daddy holds Momma’s hand when they’re in the truck. He kisses her goodbye and tells her he loves her every time she leaves for work, even if it’s just from the dining room chair. He keeps the house quiet and used to make us leave her alone when she’s sleeping after her night shift. She still takes care of him–cooking his favorite foods, washing his clothes, cleaning up the house, and trying to keep things quiet for him when he gets upset.

One date, a few phone calls, a two-week engagement, and twenty-six years later. I wonder if Momma felt the same way about Daddy that I feel about Angel. Is this what it felt like for her in the beginning?

I hope so. I hope that Momma and Daddy knew what I feel.

But, I also don’t. I hope that’s not what becomes of love after so long.