This Reminds Me

It was the week after Armistice (according to Keith.)

It was the week before Thanksgiving (according to me.)

But either way – we married November 18, 1989.  So we’ve been married 20 years today.

My brother David walked me down the aisle at Westbury Baptist.  We had practiced in street clothes, but not in my dress – which fed up into his electric wheelchair gears about 3/4 of the way to the alter.  I was gouging his back hissing, “Reverse!  Reverse!” while he countered  “I can’t!  I can’t!”   My brother-in-law Carl and Keith slowly extracted my dress from the mechanism.  When we made it to the platform, my wonderful Uncle Jim – the Methodist minister who married us – produced a gynormous white handkerchief for Keith to wipe his greasy hands upon during a lengthy prayer.   Uncle Jim later told us, “I always carry it.  You wouldn’t believe what it’s wiped up.”

My brilliant niece Sarah and Keith’s best friend Kurt attended us.    I was in Houston this weekend to celebrate the 65th birthday of my sister Judy (Sarah’s mom).  Sarah surprised me with an anniversary gift to share with Keith.  Pay attention to our faces in the picture below…….

Yes, we were younger, thinner , a lot smarter and had disposable income.  Note the antique elephant on top of our cake, a gift from Keith’s mom because we met at the Republican phone bank and spent the following evening together at the George R. Brown Convention Center, waiting for #41 to make his triumphant entrance.   See our faces?

See them again!  “Becky & Keith,” “11/18/89  20 yrs!” and line art of our faces as scanned from the cake-cutting picture.  Sarah and Judy custom-ordered these M&M’s in our wedding colors – shades of pink and wine, heavy on the mauve – which David always described as “a color not occurring in nature.”  We served M&M’s in big bowls at our reception.

We fantasized about all kinds of honeymoons, but ended up in Galveston because I had a Gold C coupon for the Hotel Galvez – most certainly an indicator of behaviors to come.

Keith totally stunned me when he asked me to marry him.  In fact, I responded, “Are you crazy?”   Now he lives with five woman so if he wasn’t crazy then, he’s got to be now.

Lots has changed in 20 years, but not everything.  I still like mauve.  And elephants.   I love Keith more than ever.  And when the evenings get stressful and there’s just too much to try to jam in,  I try to remember those big bowls of M&M’s at our reception and think:  Let those harsh words just melt in my mouth.  Because I’ve got the one I love to hold my hand.

Happy Anniversary, Keith!  Are you surprised?!   Or just crazy?!  I opened only one of the three bags of custom-printed M&M’s to take the picture, and nibbled only two of those I photographed.  So there will be plenty to sample when we get home tonight!

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