the two great suns

My goal this semester was to increase my communications skills with my wife.  Because of the needs of our ageing parents, I live with my father and my wife lives in our family home in a town about 20 miles away.  My father needs daily guidance and her moms needs physical assistance.  My goal then was to see if I could increase our communications and intimacy using texting, voice calls, weekly visits and sharing the poetry I write.

Take a walk down memory lane with me today.

My parents have always been very central to my very soul even through the many decades I was angry about the way they raised me the first three years of my life.   I used to borrow my mom’s van when I would make weekly trips to Wyoming repairing big screen tv’s in people’s homes.  I would play this song for hours on her cassette deck.  I selected my wife based on the relationship she would build with my family.  My wife and my sister became best friends while I was courting my wife.  Today they run a day-care center together.

“I was standing at the counter
I was waiting for the change
When I heard that old familiar music start
It was like a lighted match had been tossed into my soul
It was like a dam had broken in my heart
After taking every detour
Gettin' lost and losin' track
So that even if I wanted I could not find my way back
After driving out the memory
Of the way things might have been
After I'd forgotten all about us
The song remembers when”

https://youtu.be/AygRmWnow1w

Trish Yearwood, The Song Remembers When1

My wife and I listened to this song a great deal when we were first married.  I sent her this link one morning to reminder of my love for her and the life we built together.

“Remember when I was young and so were you
“And time stood still and love was all we knew
You were the first, so was I
We made love and then you cried
Remember when”

https://youtu.be/2wc20mXtyRY

Alan Jackson ”Remember When”

I wrote this poem for one of my English Classes last year.  It is about the first time my wife and I made love on our second day of married life.  The day we were married was a busy day.  My wife planned, decorated and hosted her own wedding reception so by the time we made it to the hotel room that night she was very tired.  We made that first night a pajama night.  The second day was in our apartment where her family and friends has helped her move her stuff the previous week including her king size water bed. We had spent that Sunday visiting my sister and blessing her first son Fridy Leishman.  We have never had a honey moon, life just got to busy.  That night she escorted me to the bridal chamber and ask me to help her make a baby.

On making a baby ...

Let's make a baby,
She said.

It was not the first night,
But the second.

The first had been a pajama night.

Still he had not slept with a woman,
Except momma, her momma, or an aunt.

The first day was a busy day,
The wedding breakfast,
Temple ceremony, when he nearly fainted, and the wedding reception.

So, the first night was a pajama night.

She was the first to kiss him,
Except momma.

That second night, they did try, to make a baby.

Little did they know, He could never create new life.

Still they luved to try.

The babies did come, send from another who luved them all.

He so luved his Eve.
So times seam tough and life is a struggle ,
Still he knows she was the first and will remain the only,

To ask him, to help her, to make a baby.

http://www.mymuzes.org/2017/08/on-making-baby.html

My wife and her mom have always seamed to be more sisters then mother and daughter.  I wonder what their relationship had been like before they were born.  My wife was 29 when we married and she had brother and sister young enough to be her children.  She was living at home when we married. she helping her mom to raise these children. When we found out I was not able to create life we thought we would help her mom with these children and borrow the nieces and nephews on weekends.  My wife started a day care center in our hope to help with the baby’s pains.  My wife’s sister chose to become our handmaiden and create two children for us to share.   I have taught my children of Nancy’s love for them. The choose she made to create their life and how they need to honor her choice.  They were never a mistake or a problem to be solved.

This is the last picture I have of Ashley, Nicholas and their older brother Cody.  I really wanted to be Cody’s father but grandpa loved him first.  If we had taken Cody then it would have removed my fathers-in-law desire to live. My mother-in-law raised two babies of her daughter’s and we raised our two.  My wife and her mom did their best to raise them as one family unit in two separate homes.

The Babies they raised together

They were sisters, first, were they not?

Then mother, and daughter.

The babies, then they raised, together.

Unmarried she was and living at home.

Helping her mom with the babies.

Born when out of high school, she was.

Young enough, they were.

They could have been, her children.

Then the young man along came he.

Too young for her was he,

she then 30 and he is 25.

This then the cradle, she robbed.

Then the small house, in the center of town.
It was her grandmother's house, the first they bought,
together.

Then no babies came, to them,
infertile was he, failed her request,
to help make a baby.

Then the daycare center, in their home,
more babies then come, to raise.

Her sister, fertile was she.
This then her gift, a baby, to them.

This then their baby to raise together.

Her mother received a gift, two babies,
from her daughters.

This then more babies, to raise, together.

These babies, siblings would be.
One home, two houses, and three babies to share.

Then later, one final gift, this baby,
to them, this day.

This then the babies, they raised together.

I wanted you to this picture, the joy in my children’s lives.  If you knew Ashley’s and Cody’s history you would wonder how she grew to love and forgive him.  He spent a few years in reform school for the mistakes he made with his sister’s.  When you walk into a courtroom and participate in prosecution and then purchase a van so you can visit that a boy, that should have been your first son, you learn the real power of love and forgiveness.

This then the drive

This then the drive, to visit, one of the babies.

Nearly grown now, is he?
He is tall.
He is smart.
One of the babies, we raised, together.
But the choices, he made, what of the choices.
He is not what he did, he is one of the babies.
So a used van, I buy, to take them, for a visit.

This then four hours, we will drive, one way.
In the van, my wife and I will sit,
while mom and dad visit with the baby,
now a young man.

I hold a prayer, that is all I can hold.
No influence have, I over this baby.
All I have is my love.

He could have been my first baby,
But grandpa loved him first.
So all I have is my prayer and hope.
A hope that he will become more then he did.
More than he is, now.

This crime, this thing, forgiveness will then come.
For to love is the only choice I have, today.
To choose any other is to damage my soul.
So I will love the boy I have no influence over,
and I will cherish this memory, we make today.

https://www.mymuzes.org/2019/10/this-then-drive.html

So, you ask how is Bonnie and my relationship, today, I visited her this weekend to again ask this question.  Al least twice a week I ask her if we are good and is she happy.  She reassures me that we are good and that she loves me, still. It seems like we are both two great suns orbiting one great planet.  This planet represents our parents and our children.   This is the poem I wrote this weekend and shared with wife yesterday.

on two great suns

Two great suns, once there were.

once in orbit near a great sphere,

Attracted they were one to another.

This then what of the attraction.

Little in common had they then,

even less now so they find.

This attraction what does, it hold?

This distance required, as the sun's glow brighter,

a greater distance, in their orbit sphere.

This the fear then he feels,
that destruction may come,
at a smaller orbit, as their strength and bond
glow brighter.

Daily he checks, this then the dance.

Weaving in and out, each other's sphere.

This many years now, then have they danced.

The choice than to continue, this covenant path.