Category: Marriage

Love Is Us

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

beatles-abbey-roadOn September 26, 1969, the Beatles released perhaps their quintessential album, Abbey Road. The timing could not have come at a better time for me. My idealism was badly damaged from the events of the previous summer, a collection of weeks that quite literally changed me and my family in the most devastating ways. I was not yet twenty one and I felt like a forty year old. My mother had endured a crushing mental breakdown during July and August and I had reluctantly accepted the responsibility for her care and that of my brothers. I was shoved out of my naive and isolated world into the hellishness of reality as I struggled to keep everyone together and to make decisions that were foreign to my nature. I was a bride of less than a year who was being tested more than I thought I might bear. The Beatles came to my rescue with their innovative music that eased the beasts that were battling inside of me.

There would be many a time when I would listen to the songs that became so comforting to me, not so much because they were happy and lighthearted, which they were not, but because I marveled at the genius of the work that was unlike anything that the world had ever before heard. I was able to escape into the guitar rifts and poetry of the lyrics. Here Comes the Sun became my mantra. It gave me hope that somehow my little family would one day reclaim the happiness that had been so missing in the dark days of Mama’s illness. To this very day I can’t hear the strains of that tune without remembering both the pain that I was feeling and the tranquility that the music afforded me. 

I was still in a honeymoon period with my husband Mike with whom I was madly in love but I had no idea what an incredible man I had married until those trying times. He would rise to the occasion and never leave my side over the decades in which I struggled to keep my mother healthy. He was loving and understanding and the two of us listened to Abbey Road together sensing that its brilliance expressed the feelings that we shared. My story might have been quite different had it not been for Mike. He was my anchor and my strength. I listened to lyrics from the album like “Love is you” and understood totally what that meant with regard to my devoted spouse. We may have been two babies playing house but we had something quite magical happening and somehow the Beatles had captured every emotion that we were experiencing.

I had little idea that in only a few weeks I would learn that I was pregnant with my eldest daughter Maryellen. We had no plan as to how we were going to find the money to raise a child but we could not have been happier. It was like a blessed miracle to learn that something bright and beautiful was going to happen to take our mind away from the fear and anxiety that had been stalking us. When Maryellen was born the following July I often listened to Abbey Road when I fed her in the middle of the night. It was one of the only ways I was able to keep myself awake when I was so sleep deprived. I loved the line “one sweet dream came true today” because that was exactly the way I was feeling. The contentment that I enjoyed with the birth of my little girl filled my heart. It erased the despair that I had known only a year before and replaced it with a feeling that we were all going to be okay.

The years would go by. Mike and I only grew closer as we raised our little girl and then added another girl child named Catherine. My mother would go in and out of emergencies with her mental illness. I never really became accustomed to the sadness that I felt whenever she had a psychotic break. I did my best in getting her the medical help that she needed but I always felt heartbroken that her problems were chronic. I so wanted her to mend and never be sick again but that was not to be.

Abbey Road would forever be an old standby for me, a favorite of which I never grew tired. I heard new words and musical innovation each time that I listened. It somehow came to remind me of the entire span of my life. All that I am is somehow encapsulated in the music.

Imagine how wonderful it was for me to receive a text from my grandson Andrew this week telling me that he had been listening to Abbey Road at college. We traded stories about the songs that we most love and I could tell that somehow the music had reached as deeply into his psyche as it had into mine. I found myself wondering what he might think if he knew that I had rocked his mother in my arms while listening to the same brilliant harmonics back when I was only a year older than he now is. I found it somehow ironically meaningful that his birthday is on September 26, the same date as when the album first became available to the public. I thought about the enormous influence the Beatles have had on so many souls and particularly on me, providing so much solace during the most difficult moments and the happiest ones as well.

The day on which my mother died can only be described as beautiful. We all will eventually leave this earth and she knew that her end had come. She was ready and convinced that she would soon be in her heavenly home. Everyone who had ever loved her was gathered around on that day, including Andrew. Mama asked my Mike to take care of the family, an honor that he humbly agreed to accept. We said our prayers and our goodbyes. When she had breathed her last I once again thought of the Beatles and their prescient words that seemed almost to have been written especially for her and our family, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” We had overcome one problem after another hand in hand only to emerge with an ever stronger bond time and again. Through it all the Beatles have continuously been there as we have traveled down our long and winding road learning with each step that love is us. 

Daunting

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

main-content-management-imageBecause I grew up in a single parent family led by a strong and confident woman I am strong willed and independent. Had my husband, Mike, not been nurtured by a mother who was an equal to mine in her commanding presence he might have struggled with my personality after we married forty eight years ago today. I suppose that the real me may have been a bit of a surprise to him. I was a month shy from being twenty years old on that Friday when I walked down the aisle to exchange vows. We were still in that tingly romantic stage of our relationship. Both of us were on our best behavior. As so often happens our true selves ultimately revealed themselves in the day to day routines that evolved and Mike noticed that I was not exactly the person that he thought I was.

I’m a daunting competitor who likes to win. Since nobody ever mentioned to me that women are expected to fulfill certain roles and that we are supposed to struggle in a man’s world, as a young bride I simply threw myself full force into handling the household and preparing for a career. I was not held back by beliefs that there were glass ceilings above me or that I wouldn’t get as fair a shake as the men with whom I interacted. I carried on the way my mother did after my father died, unafraid to try almost anything. Of course Mike had unwittingly provided me with the last bit of courage that I needed to emulate the confidence that I had always seen in my mom. I had been socially shy and uncomfortable around men before I met him mostly because I had not been around males very much. Mike taught me that I could hold my own with a man and he admitted at every turn that he was my biggest fan. With him in my corner I felt able to tackle any problem that came my way, which was fortunate because I would have to muster great courage to become a lifelong advocate for my mom when she began to show signs of her bipolar disorder.

As I evolved in my marriage and my role as a woman I had perhaps the two best role models possible in my mother and my mother-in-law. I witnessed both of them walking without fear into the fray of what was at that time a truly male dominated world. They encouraged me to follow my dreams no matter where they might lead. My mother-in-law in particular gave me the priceless gift of her time, often rescuing me when one of my children was sick by coming to babysit while I went to work. When I had a job that kept me at work until late in the evening she faithfully came to my home each afternoon so that my youngsters would not have to be latchkey kids. She prepared dinner to give me a break when I arrived home exhausted. While these may sound like very traditional womanly duties they came accompanied with profound advice that kept me feeling that I was doing the right thing in pouring myself so totally into my work.

Then there was Mike who never complained when I became absorbed in the many time consuming aspects of being a successful educator. My days and nights and weekends were filled with planning, grading, attending seminars, and working toward an advanced degree. I often spent more time with my students and our daughters than I did with him but he understood my need to perfect my craft and to give my all to the work that I thought to be so important. He took pride in my accomplishments and supported me without question even as he sometimes sacrificed his own needs. To this very day when I become involved in new pursuits his only bit of caution is that I do what makes me happy, not what I think that other people may want.

I suppose that the key to the success that Mike and I have achieved in our marriage is that we are truly best friends in every sense of the word. Neither of us has ever felt that one is superior to the other. We equally value the contributions that each of us has made to the partnership. While I compete with the world at large, neither of us feel compelled to outrank the other. We are truly coequals, each with different skill sets that are important to the family. There are no jealousies or fears. We can be ourselves and feel completely safe. Nothing in forty eight years has given either of us reason to believe that we cannot trust the other without reservation. Ours is a union of mutual respect and admiration.

I suppose that my circumstances have been fortunate in that my brand of feminism is a bit different from most. I did not grow up around domineering men, instead I watched a widow woman earn a college degree, work as a teacher and researcher, purchase and pay for a home, raise three well adjusted children and lead a profoundly happy existence all without assistance from a man, while also battling the horrifically debilitating symptoms of mental illness. I married a man who gave me total freedom in determining how I wanted to use my own talents and then became my most devoted cheerleader. As if that wasn’t enough to encourage me to be formidable in my interaction with the world, my mother-in-law became a source of limitless wisdom as I drew upon her experiences as the manager of a family electrical business, the chief financial officer of a mega church, and a well read student of history and politics. Based on the complaints that I hear from women today I suppose that I was too blessed and too ignorant to realize that I was not supposed to feel as equal to men as I always have.

I grew up in what is defined as a classically dysfunctional family. We were poor and had no father. Because of my mom’s optimism and strength, somehow the situation never felt that terrible. I married a man when I was too young to have enough sense to make things work but our love and respect for one another carried us through both triumph and tragedy year after wonderful year. My incredible mother-in-law served as a sounding board and a sterling example of what a determined woman might accomplish even when all of the world is telling her that she may not have the right stuff. These are the people that I knew and the privileges that I had that made me the woman that I am. As daunting as the world may sometimes be I have always been able to tackle it. The real key to my success as a woman has not been in having some kind of special sources of influence, because I have never had any, but in being valued and loved.