Confession

As some of you know, our daughter Ann lives in Ireland. Her father in law died this past week, so she and her husband traveled to Dublin for the funeral. Tom, her father in law, had been ill for a long time with cancer, so it was not unexpected. His wife is in the beginning throes of Alzheimer’s, so things are not good over there right now.

We called Ann today, like we do most Saturday mornings to see how she was doing. She was on an outing with her husband Peter and his sister’s family when we reached her in their car. She wanted to call us back rather than talk in the car, and so we talked to her again once they had arrived at their destination.

She said she wanted us both on the phone because she had something to tell us. “I’m not pregnant or anything, so don’t get excited” she cautioned us.

.She went on to say that we had her wedding anniversary date wrong.

Some background information: Her husband is from Ireland, and for a long time they lived in the United States, in a house in Chicago. Two years ago at the end of May, we all flew over to Ireland for their wedding. It was a magical time and we thoroughly enjoyed our trip, as we got to see Dublin and Galway and the countryside in between. So her remark was a little confusing. Is it May 29 instead of May 30? What was she talking about.

“Our anniversary is actually October 15, 1996.”

This was days before they left for Chicago, to “live in sin”, as Kathy said. Turns out they were married in Cleveland in a courtroom. They forgot they needed witnesses, so they scanned the room looking for likely candidates. They discounted the prostitutes and drug dealers awaiting trial, and chose two college girls who were there as part of a class assignment.

Her friends and her two brothers knew the secret, but they kept it for all these years. Beth and Peter did not want his parents to know because the parents were upset about the kids moving to the US. If his parents knew they were already married, the kids thought that would drive them nuts, since they would have wanted a wedding in the church.

Now that Peter’s father is gone, and his mother is not all that aware of her surroundings, they thought it was safe to tell us the truth. They knew we would think it was kind of funny. You see, it must be in the genes. Kathy’s parents were secretly married. Both her sisters had secret justice of the peace ceremonies, and one of our sons eloped. What is it with this family?

We are glad they told us, though. Now we can celebrate two anniversaries if we like. I am glad they let us enjoy the moment in their church wedding—that was very special to me. Now, though, we have to go around and explain to our friends that they weren’t living in sin for all those years after all.