We would get this question occasionally, particularly after we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in the late summer of 2021.
It went something like this: What is the secret to your marriage success? My bride had a quick answer and it was the correct answer, at least in her astute and intuitive mind. “We just hold hands,” she would say. The question was often posed in the context of our modern society that produces so many failed marriages.
Hmm. Then came the follow up: How does that help?
She would say that it didn’t matter how we were feeling at that moment, whether she was mad at me or we had some disagreement, holding hands kept us close together and enabled us to talk through whatever differences we were experiencing.
To be sure, Kathy Anne and I really liked each other’s company. I can say that without any equivocation. For certain, I enjoyed being in her company. She said she enjoyed being with me … so I would take her at her word.
The hand-holding was something we did naturally. It was never contrived or was something we had to remember to do. We would take walks around our neighborhood with Toby the Puppy and we would reach instinctively for the each other’s hand. Off we would go, traipsing around the ‘hood as the Puppy would seek to mark every weed, hydrant, lamp post he could find.
Friends would comment frequently, telling us that “it is just so cool to see you holding hands” as we walked along heading to nowhere in particular.
We didn’t get into prolonged arguments. But occasionally, as every married couple has experienced, there would be a bump along the way.
Through it all, we kept in touch — quite literally — simply by holding hands.
I offer this as a mini-seminar on maintaining a successful marriage. It helps — at least from my standpoint — that I found the girl of my dreams quite suddenly and unexpectedly one January day in college.
We enjoyed one fabulous journey for 51 glorious years.
We held hands.