Every night before going to bed, I would sit on the stairs leading up to my room and write notes on my phone about things Nancy and Claude had said that day that I wanted to remember. Little stories or just short quotes that illustrated the kind of people they are, or the way they were raised – these are some of my favorites.
Claude – “When my mom was older, I tried taking her out for dinner at a nice restaurant. I asked her if she wanted to go to a seafood restaurant, so she could order fish. She told me she didn’t like fish! I said, ‘What do you mean you don’t like fish? You always eat the fish I bring home.’ Then she said, ‘That’s because you caught them.’ That’s the kind of woman my mother was.”
Nancy – “I was the second of 5 girls, and my dad made it obvious that he was unhappy he didn’t get a son. I tried hard to be a boy – people called me Butch, and I wore my hair short. I guess I just wanted his approval. When it came time for Dad to divide up the farm [almost 300 acres of land], he wanted to give it all to my brother [Nancy’s younger sister got pregnant as a teenager, and the baby, a boy, was raised by Nancy’s parents as their own son instead of as a grandson]. That didn’t sit right with me. He was going to give over 200 acres of land to him, and divide the rest of it between us girls? I wasn’t comfortable with that. So the next day I went back to him and I fought for this farm. I told him he had always treated us girls as ‘less than,’ and I didn’t want to put up with it anymore. We deserved to be treated equally. Well, he thought about it over night and called me the next morning. He told me he was going to divide the land more equally. My brother would still get more than us girls, but the split was a lot more equal. I paid my sisters for their share of the land, and that’s how we got this house. When he told me he would be giving us more land he said, ‘I thought I would be sad giving away all my belongings, but actually I feel great.’ ”
When I learned they would be celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary this year, I asked Claude and Nancy what kind of advice they would give to Adam and I on making our own marriage last that long.
Claude – “Perseverance.” (A laugh) “But seriously, you both need to have it. You also need to give yourself time for reflection. We had to get to a point where we remembered why we were crazy about each other in the first place, and realize that those qualities were still in each other. I came to truly believe we were together for a reason.”
Nancy – “I had to learn to love myself first. I always assumed things on the negative side, that he was doing certain things because he didn’t love me, when that thought wasn’t even crossing his mind. Once I loved myself, I saw I was worthy of the love he’d been showing me all along.
Claude and Nancy’s son, my cousin Shane, is a published poet and Creative Writing professor at a University. They had a framed and signed copy of one of those poems he’d written up in their living room. The poem was about 2 brothers who had found an old gun and one ended up shooting the other. I told them that I thought his poem was pretty sad, and kind of intense. Claude said, “That’s a true story.” I quieted up then, and he added, “His poetry is the only kind I ever understood.”
Claude had been bending over all afternoon, tending to a garden he was just starting. I came up to the garden’s fence and watched him for a bit. He’s an old man, and I was impressed with his endurance. “Doesn’t that hurt your back?” I asked.
“No,” he answered, and then paused. “But I suppose it would if I didn’t enjoy the work.”
Nancy, when we were preparing to leave – “Just leave the toys where they are. I like to remember what they were doing when I see them out. Sometimes I just leave them there for a week!”
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