CuppaGemma

In one month we’ll be married.

The little pieces start to come together. We found our rings yesterday. After we walked out like giddy children, whispering secrets to one another. “Have we really done this? In one month from now we’ll be married on the ferry then off to Rome to wander and drink coffee?” It was, simply nice. We kept patting Chris’s pocket to make sure that this was real.

Of course life interrupts.

We shared a giggle that my ex husband happened to ring me to confirm the evening schedule with the children while we were trying on bands. “Perhaps I can call you back in a little while?”

The good thing about life changing is you get used to the churn of it and rejiggering plans again is not seen as a challenge as much as an opportunity. We’ve come to appreciate how relationships kind of blend and bleed into one another.

The boys have lived in the states with me for four years. Now their father is on leave of absence to spend time with them, here in America. His rental home is close to our house so the boys can go back and forth. He wants to be more present in their lives then he could be living and working in Tokyo. We rely on one another when schedules put travel or evening plans into our days.

They know both places are home.

Mom is mom and Dad is dad. Grandma and Grandpa are just another couple of blocks away. It’s a nice triangle of close family that they never could know when we lived in Tokyo. One morning the three of us myself, Chris and Chuck all walked Ryan to school. It felt a little odd to do so, but on the other hand, from the perspective of a ten year old boy, it’s good to know your parents don’t force a hand a make you choose sides or build forts of resentment against one another.

Ryan’s grade had a singing concert right after the big snowstorm. We all attended together. We sat in different rows, but close enough so that when Ryan looked out to smile at his parents, he didn’t need to look left to mom and right to dad.  “Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah!…La la how the life goes on…”

The roles of husband and father are complex but living relationships. We all want the boys to know and love their father, and to know and love each of our spouses.

What does that mean practically- we figure it out day on day. We want them to know that love isn’t something that is measured or can only be given to one person in one very concrete way.

The boys see their mother in a loving an caring relationship with a man who is gentle and kind to them. That’s different than being their father. They see Chuck loving and caring about them in a way that only he can as their father. They see the three of us as all being able to have a conversation without sabers and daggers in the ready.

It’s not competition or a comedy show.

Chris was going to take Ryan to a movie, then Chuck’s schedule changed and he asked if he could instead, he did. Ryan ended up bring a couple of his friends with him, and when it was done they all stayed here for pizza. It’s a hoot for the kids to sit around in the den downstairs at our bar and eat. (The Sapporo is in the upstairs fridge, the downstairs one will likely have Sprite and Cream Soda in the spring).

“Do you have to marry my mom? Can’t you two just stay dating?”

A concern for both the boys was what does marriage mean. Chris has been living here and in the pace of our lives for nearly a year. The boys helped to empty his apartment when he came to New York. They have some of his things in their rooms. They ask him questions. He’s carried Ryan to bed and brought Thomas tea when he’s been sick. But does the marriage mean things will change somehow?

It does and it doesn’t.

We will have wedding rings and share names. But nothing else much changes from the day in day out life. Chris and I laughed that all of our parents took it as a matter of course this was a long term relationship headed for marriage. “We KNEW that. We thought you had “other” news.” The unknown was would their also be children?

No.

With four between us ranging from ten to twenty years old, that’s enough. To start all over again with nursing and carrying a little one, going through first words and first days of school- is not where either of us want to take our lives. We’d like to keep building our friendship help our boys become men and focus on our careers and interests.

But we will celebrate these days.

On the first day of spring we marry, then exactly six weeks later our family and friends will have an afternoon to talk and dance and share together. The days will be warmer and the flowers in bloom.  Mike, my guitar teacher will bring his band to play.  The place knows us well, since we go in for lunch often, so we trust they will take care of the little details like flowers and crisply pressed napkins. We’ll use some of Chris’s photos for the invitations, and hope the day and time will bring many together.

We are celebrating these days now. Chris teases about the neighbors and shop owners who shake his hand and tell him he is a lucky man. He and Thomas agree, that mom makes and effort to say hello and know people, so it’s nice to be remembered by others. And I tell him that I am lucky too, because he is tender and caring.

We’re used to one another in a comfortable kind of way. Enough to sit and listen to music all night. Or to spend the day cleaning and caring for our home. Holding hands and walking forward together in life.