I talked to my neighbor lady last night who is about 84, and a widow since she was in her early 50's. She said she was dusting the other day and she picked up a framed photo of her husband who died in 1982. She looked at it and cried. She told me, "I asked myself, when will I stop crying about him?" We both know the answer. Never. She will never stop missing him just as I will never not miss Gary. That's the way it is.
I think about the people who just lost their family members in Boston and how they are being forced to grieve so publicly. I feel for them in the long days ahead missing those people who should never have died so young.
A few days ago, I was recalling promises made to me and how they changed my life.
The first, and most amazing promise made to me was from my dad when I was 10 years old. My dad was a fireman and at the time, was required to live within the city limits of Sioux Falls. We lived in a pretty cool neighborhood where everyone knew everyone else and both the adults and kids got along fairly well. Block parties and coffee parties were the norm for us. One neighbor was Barney Barnes who had a Foremost Milk route. Most city dwellers had Fenns or Lakeside boxes outside their doors for milk, but we had Barney deliver our glass milk bottles as the last stop on his route to round out his day.
Barney had always had horses. I LOVED horses! I lusted after them from the first memory I have.
My mom saved a tiny little pencil drawing of a horse I made when I was five. She kept it because you can actually tell that it is a horse with a saddle on it.
Barney had grown daughters so he adopted me as his cowgirl helper. We made twine into rope and then into lariats. He gave me two lariats. For my birthday once he gave me a quirt, which girls use when barrel racing horses. I used it to threaten my older sister with.
Barney occaisionally took me out to ride horses where he kept his, at a farm just a few miles away. His friend Norm had some safe horses that he let me ride. I was in horse heaven.
But, when I got home, I would not just feel sad, I cried for days from withdrawl from horses. I wanted one SO BADLY. On my 10th birthday, dad took me out to a riding stable after work and bought an hour on a horse for me. Just me and the horse in a riding ring. Dad sat under a tree most of the time, bored to tears.
I will never forget that birthday gift, though. It was the best birthday ever.
In late 1967 just shortly before this song hit the radio, I was sitting at the kitchen snack bar drawing horses. I was still 10 at the time. I don't remember the conversation's beginning, but my dad told me he was "sick of eating, sleeping and drinking HORSES." I suppose he thought I should have grown out of it. He sat down and gave me a promise that if I still loved horses when I was 30, he would buy me one. I bargained with him and got him down to age 20. "OK, if you are 20 and you still love horses, I will buy you one," he told me. I'm sure he thought he would not have to make good on the promise.
The years went on, Barney retired the milk route and Foremost Milk went out of business. Barney suffered a heart attack and had to take it easy during the long recovery. He rarely rode anymore so we just talked about horses mostly.
I started working and hanging out with boys, but I still loved horses, and the promise was always there in my thoughts. My dad and mom eventually sold the house in town when the city relaxed the rule and allowed firemen to live within 3 miles of the city limits. So they purchased enough land within the allowed perimeter and subdivided it into acreages to sell off as an investment. They kept about 2 acres and built their own home on it, which my boyfriend Gary worked with my dad on before we were married when I turned 18.
I know I told Gary about the promise, but he didn't think much about it, I'm sure. I lived at that house for about 3 months before we got married. When I was 19, I got a 'good job' at The Phone Company(insert fairy dust here) as an operator. It was the usual entry level job that was available in 1976.
On May 20, 1977, my dad called me and told me to come out to the house for lunch for my birthday. I was working a split shift, 8am to 11am, then due back from 4pm to 8:30pm. I drove from work downtown out to the house and parked in front of the garage. Dad hit the button on the opener and inside stood Lady, a bay POA (Pony of the Americas) with a pretty white sprinkling of white spots on her rear. Dad kept his promise and got me my horse.
The other important promise made and kept was from Gary. He promised to love me until death did we part. He did. He promised to be faithful. He was. There are many many times when anyone who is married wonders if it is worth it. I did, and Gary had to have. There were so many times when it was tempting to just call it quits. But, Gary NEVER said that to me, even if he was thinking it. He had a very different childhood from mine. He experienced loss from divorce. I think divorcing was the last thing he would have considered because of how it had made him feel when he was little. So he was determined to stick it out with me and keep his promise even though we didn't get along at times in our marriage. He told me once, if we got divorced, it would have to be me that would ask for it, not him. Its kind of an empowering cushion to know that I held the key to staying together. I never asked, we stuck it out, and we were rewarded for doing so.
I always felt I was the luckier one to be married to him. He was tall, good looking, and a talented hard worker. He could have found many other women to be with. We talked about that shortly before he died. He said he had always been faithful and I know he was. It makes it even harder to give up this guy that I had to give up. He is irreplaceable.
So the two men who were so important to me were the ones who made promises which they kept even years after making them. I mean, really-- what dad would give their adult, married daughter a HORSE!! And what guy anymore is so stubborn that he refuses to give up on the relationship he promised to stay in when he was only 19?
You've probably heard the one, 'Promises are meant to be broken.' Aren't I lucky that my dad and my husband never believed in that old saying?
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