Divorce. No!

At the first memorial Allison held up a copy of their marriage license. The date marked their 10th anniversary, a landmark they never quite reached. But without earlier resolve, wouldn’t have even come close.

In the recent memorial services for son-in-law Vernon many stories came out. One was told by me, another by Anne. One had to do with how he came into our lives and Allison’s, the other how he stayed.

At the beginning, when I first heard Allison talking seriously about this man she’d met I was concerned and Allison reacted to that. “It’s because he’s divorced!” she assumed and accused. But, no, I told her, people get divorced. It had more to do with spiritual matters and his non-alignment with Allison’s. The story of how that came together was the one I told. Ultimately, they married (I blessed it, even performing the ceremony) and they moved off to England, where Vernon was from.

He went back to school, the University of Reading, specializing in typographical design, a field in which later he aspired. Son Maki would spend time with them, visiting from Norway where his mother lived. Allison got a job and generally found her way into this new culture, marriage, and England. Things were good.

But not always.

It’s not that she ever called home to tell of personal difficulties; but there are always some when any two adults, particularly from different cultures, work to merge their lives together. It was work. And it was working.

But at one point it wasn’t. Apparently there had been some building of tension which finally erupted. (Have you ever been there?) Though he likely hated the thought, Vernon suggested that maybe this whole marriage thing wasn’t going to work out after all. With that he went away for the weekend on some pre-arranged venture.

Apparently that weekend, after the “blowup,” alone with her feelings and her thoughts, Allison came to conclusions. When Vernon returned she shared them: “Divorce is not something that happens in my family,” she said. “We’ll not be entertaining that word again. We’re going to make this work.”

And that’s what they did.

It was a major moment. After that it took resolve and wisdom and all manner of self giving love. It always takes all of that. But what I found so inspiring was the way Allison reflected on family and the role modeling she had around her.

Allison was the oldest of five and the last to marry. When she scanned the horizon of family closest to her, divorce wasn’t something she saw.

The rest, you know, at least if you’ve followed her story at all. A recent blog of hers was particularly telling of the love they shared, all the more tender because of his two years of disability.

In the end, they kept their vows, including the part about sickness and health till death do us part. But it’s not because it wasn’t tested. They just passed the test.

We all have tests. Let’s pass them.