A beautiful secret

I met Peggy in Rhetoric 101. It was fall semester of my freshman year at Coe College, a small, private business school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. What literally stood out about Peggy was her enormous rack: She was every boob man’s dream.

Sadly, any fantasy I had of experiencing first-hand her magnificent orbs quickly evaporated when I discovered she was dating Pedro – a pint-sized Puerto Rican and standout goalie on the men’s soccer team. Lucky bastard. It was clear that Peggy and her splendid sweater puppies were strictly off limits, at least for my foreseeable future.

Then Peggy approached me one day after class. The Coe football team was scheduled to play its annual game against our arch rival in Ripon, Wisconsin, the upcoming Saturday. It seemed that Peggy was from a neighboring town, Green Lake (the birthplace of waterskiing she pointed out). She had a proposition.

Now as it so happened, I was a rare commodity on the Coe campus in those days: a freshman with a car. Her proposal was this: If I would drive her and her best friend Darcy home for the weekend, she’d cover all my expenses, including gas, meals, lodging at her parents’ house, and most importantly, unlimited beer and schnapps.
After confirming that Pedro wouldn’t be making the trip, I said “Sure, what the heck.” Fact is, I was a lousy student and hadn’t planned on studying over the weekend. Besides, I’d have paid good money to spend a few days in the company of Peggy and her amazing twins.

We left shortly after lunch that Friday, skipping our afternoon classes. The five-hour drive from Eastern Iowa to upper Midwest Wisconsin was scenic but otherwise uneventful. After dropping Darcy off with her folks, Peggy took me to meet her family.

After dinner with the folks, the two of us took a leisurely drive around the lake. We topped off the day with a clandestine, late-night “pajama party” rendezvous for nightcaps in front of the fireplace. To my delight, Peggy wore nothing underneath her flannel top. I was in Hooter Heaven.

The next morning after breakfast, Peggy said she had a couple of people she wanted to introduce me to. A short drive later we arrived at her grandparents’ house. They welcomed us at the door of their cozy bungalow and invited us inside.

We were seated in matching overstuffed wing chairs in the small, tidy living room. Her grandparents sat together on the couch across the coffee table from us. On the table were a plate of freshly baked cookies and steaming mugs of hot chocolate. We made small talk, sipped cocoa, and ate gingersnaps. I answered questions about where I was from, my family, my college major, and so on.

As we chatted, I couldn’t help but notice how Peggy’s grandparents carried on together. They were in their 90s, with clear, piercing blue eyes that sparkled when they looked at each other. They sat there on the couch, holding hands like a couple of teenaged school children. Yet Peggy had said they’d been married for more than 70 years. It didn’t make sense to me – never once had I witnessed my parents acting that way.

At a lull in the conversation, I took the opportunity to pose the question gnawing inside me. After pointing out their long years of marriage and obvious undiminished affection for each other, I paused, cleared my throat, and asked: “So what’s your secret?”

They looked into each other’s eyes and smiled. He squeezed her hand. After a moment she turned to me and said, “Well… we make the bed together every morning.”

Huh? That’s it? I wasn’t sure if I should take her seriously, but she just sat there looking at me, a sweet little smile on her face.

Before I could respond, she got up and took our mugs into the kitchen to refill them. The conversation quickly turned to other topics. Soon it was time to leave.

We stopped to pick up Darcy and drove to Ripon for the football game. Coe lost, but neither Peggy nor Darcy seemed to care. After the game we headed downtown for some “college cheer” and the typical post-game festivities. The next morning we departed to make our way back to Cedar Rapids.

I didn’t think about my visit with Peggy’s grandparents again until a few weeks later when she showed up at my dorm room door one afternoon, crying. I invited her in.

She hugged me and said she’d just got off the phone with her grandmother, who’d broken the news that her grandfather had passed away. I asked how her grandmother was taking it. She chuckled as she wiped away some tears and said, “Better than I am.” We sat on the edge of the bed and talked.

She shared that her grandparents had never been apart during their 70-plus years of marriage. Not even for one day. Her grandmother had confided to her over the phone that they had made love every single day, including that very morning. I imagined what “making love” meant to two 90-somethings. It probably didn’t resemble the clinical definition of the term. But I guessed that really didn’t matter.

As I pondered the thought, it suddenly dawned on me. I finally understood the “secret” to their marriage.

Sure, they began every day with a shared activity – making the bed together. But it wasn’t about making the room presentable for guests who might drop by unannounced.
It was about starting each day with reverence and respect for the bed in which they consummated their love. It was about holding sacred their vows and their union, and the place where they were reinforced every single day of their life together. Making the bed was just a metaphor.

How simple. How profound. How beautiful.

That weekend, the three of us – Peggy, Darcy and I – drove back to Green Lake for the funeral. Before leaving again for Cedar Rapids, we stopped by Peggy’s grandmother’s house to say our goodbyes.

As I hugged her in the doorway, I peeked inside. I could just see, through the open bedroom door, a carefully made bed. I choked back a tear as I smiled. And I quietly said a small prayer.

(c)2011 Thom Burns