Please welcome Jeanette Baker, an award-winning author of 15 novels. I will be reviewing her new ebook, Witch Woman, tomorrow. I invited Jeanette to do a guest post which I would like to share with you now.
Get Me to the Church on Time
Because it’s February, the month of Valentines’ Day, I’ve decided to write about love and the most optimistic of human institutions, marriage. I call it optimistic because even though a huge percentage of all first marriages end in divorce, we humans sing the songs, read the books, watch the movies and keep hoping to get it right. Hence, once again, for the third time, I’m on the brink of matrimony.
“It’s not fair,” my friend complains, “you’ll have had three husbands and I can’t even find number two.”
Some might wonder at the inequity of life when a beautiful, fit, intelligent and financially solvent woman married for one brief season decades ago, can’t find a husband, while I, after a year or so of mourning, twitch my nose and, on some enchanted evening across a crowded room, my glance meets that of the right one and the rest is history.
Sounds like magic, doesn’t it, the kind of magic found in the books I write? In all fairness, it wasn’t like that. My first marriage lasted a very long time, but after 26 years of numbing misery, after the children were grown and there was no more emotional pain either of us could inflict on the other, we called it quits. It wasn’t a total loss. I had the children, and I learned quite a bit from that failed marriage. I learned that it’s more important to give than to take and that, in the giving, I’ll receive. I’ve learned to appreciate a different way of showing love and to express my appreciation frequently. I’ve learned that some things are better left unsaid and that serenity is a virtue.
I’d never planned to marry again. I didn’t join an online dating service nor did I select anyone out of a pool. There were no requirements for a new relationship. My second and late husband, a lovely man, died a too brief four years after our wedding. I met future husband number three at, of all places, church. He has been my friend and companion for nearly six years. We didn’t start out thinking we would marry. Why bother, we thought. We’re together. What difference will marriage make?
And then, over time, it began to make a difference. Why, some of my long married friends asked, when everything is so settled, when you have your home, your independence, your bank account, would you marry again?
Why indeed? Because I like being a wife…Because I’m too old to be someone’s girlfriend… Because a man in his 60’s shouldn’t have to settle for the term boyfriend…Because I want the world to know that I am it for this man I share my life with and that he isn’t holding out for something better…Because I want to check the married box on medical forms…Because when introductions are necessary I want him to say, “This is my wife…” Because I want my children to stop stumbling when they attempt to explain our relationship... Because I was born in 1953 when women wore hats and white gloves to church on Sunday…Because I was brought up believing that when a man really loves a women, he will want to marry her. Because I’m an optimist, too young to give up on love, but old enough, finally, to know what makes me happy...Because, I believe, we aren't meant to be alone and that life is always better when there is someone happy and full of life to come home to...Because in the world of romantic fiction, marriage is the reward…And because my Irish soul has always wanted a last name that begins with an O'. And so…we’ve set the date, May 5th, 2012.
Please visit me at
Jeanettebaker.com, and Jeanette Baker –
FacebookThank you so much for stopping by Jeanette and congratulations!
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