by John Ellis
“They say that the road ain’t no place to start a family.”
It’s been a weird year. A good year, to be sure, but a good, weird year. Likely not as weird a year as the year when I turn sixty will be, though. When I’m sixty, I’ll be escorting my thirteen-year-old daughter to her middle school daddy/daughter dance. People who don’t know us will undoubtedly assume that Teaghan is dancing with her grandfather. During that future daddy/daughter dance, my then fifty-six-year-old bride will be home alone. Our other two children, Infinity (Fyn) and Hayden will be thirty and twenty-five respectively and doing adult things away from mom and dad presumably. Whatever else Danita does with her evening alone some thirteen years in the future, I hope that her reflections on this next path in our marriage will bring her a joy that blankets whatever sadness and pain we unknowingly face.
In thirteen years, we will have been married for thirty-one years. Thirty-one years as of June 18, 2036. As of June 18, 2023, we’ve been married for eighteen years. Over those eighteen years, we’ve never been able to get a handle on our trajectory. Very little has gone how we believed it would go. Our journey as a married couple has resisted mapping. One constant through-line-of-action has been our deepening love for one another combined with the understanding that we are each other’s only constant. The other through-line-of-action? We’ve never left the road.
Eighteen years ago, that road looked vastly different. Eighteen years later, we are nowhere close to where we believed we were heading. I’m not even sure we’re on the same road anymore. After this year, is there any doubt?
Eighteen years ago, we were destined to fail. Eighteen years ago, people we know – people close to us – were rooting for us to fail. For many, our road appeared to be short. A dead end. Our journey has never been devoid of people rooting against us nor of those who actively threaten us. But those people don’t matter, something we’ve learned on our journey. Only we matter.
On June 18, 2005, as I watched her walk down the outdoor aisle, I knew that no one else would ever be as important to me as Danita. At least, at the time, I believed it to be true. What I believed to be true eighteen years ago has proven to be reality.
I remember that day eighteen years ago almost in its entirety. Simultaneously, June 18, 2005, seems like yesterday and a lifetime ago. Spoiler alert: it’s both.
We moderns are too connected to a linear, chronological view of time – an Epicurean view of time, if you will. Because of that, we fail to appreciate how the concept of Kairos applied to time has ontological implications. The moments are never lost because the moments never leave us. Even on June 18, 2036, June 18, 2005, will be closer to us than any other day in our lives. It’s the day that irrevocably joined us, so it’s the day that defines all our other days and the day that’s always playing in our lives.
I knew I wanted to marry Danita before she knew she loved me. Thankfully, I was smart enough to wait until she knew she loved me and wanted to marry me before asking her to join with me in merging our journeys into one.
We fell in love and were married in a California we loved. A California we believed we were destined to return to. Two years into our marriage, two years after we had moved from our beloved California, we sold all our furniture and prepared to reverse our eastern steps, this time taking our two-year-old daughter with us. Instead, six years later, with another two-year-old, a son this time, our journey took us north to D.C. A hard place that fought us for the entirety of our first two years there. Now, ten years after our move north, Danita and I find ourselves in Central Florida, one of the last places we ever thought we’d be.
Where will be in thirteen years? Svalbard? One can hope. But wherever we are, Danita and I will be there together. Only we’ll know the complexities of the maze that has been our journey. Only we’ll understand the depths of the dark and the brightness of the light that’s shaded and colored our marriage. One thing I’ve learned/am learning and am profoundly grateful for is that Danita is the only person with whom I could’ve taken this journey with and survived.
People like to tell us that we’re the oddest couple they’ve ever met. I get that. We’re not offended by it. But those people fail to view us as one, as a whole. We only make an odd couple when viewed separately. Viewed as a union, we make beautiful sense. Understanding the subtext of our winding, contradictory path reveals a marriage forged in both dirt and grime and beautiful rest stops. So much so, the road has become part of us. And it ain’t over. We’re forever each other’s, no matter where we go from here.
Practically Known Theology 