My mother and father, Rita and Paul Dlug, have loved each other for over 30 years. Three decades. This includes the courtship, the dates, the engagement, the marriage and endless hours of kissing their faces off. I'm pretty sure that through everything, the love was always there. And I think it still is. And I'm pretty sure I have definite proof of this, supportive data, if you will. It could just be the length of time they've been together. But time doesn't always mean love and so I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that. And so, gather 'round the fireplace little children, Ima gonna tell you a story. The fifth child of seven in a large Polish Catholic family, my father Paul spent most of his twenties putting himself through school, earning an undergraduate degree, a masters and a doctorate in engineering, mathematics and education, respectively. A participant in the US government's ROTC program, he decided to trade time as a soldier for money for college, right smack dab in the middle of the Vietnam War. That's right. He was not drafted, he willingly joined up. This is only one instance of many where my father accurately fulfills the stereotype of every single Polish joke ever created. As fate would have it, right before he was deployed overseas, the US troops currently in Korea were shipped over to Vietnam to fight and probably, to die. To fill the gap left by those troops, my father's 7th Infantry Division was sent on to Korea as a replacement. This action could very well have saved my father from a brutal death in combat or at least, saved him from a life full of therapy and traumatic flashbacks involving napalm. An engineer in the 13th battalion, my father spent his time building bridges which did little to cure his deathly fear of heights. He also picked up bits and pieces of the native language, which he still speaks to the owners of the farmstand down the street. I can imagine the shock of a young Korean couple when a 6'2, white 225 pound Polish man walks in with a big smile on his face and blurts out, "Annyong ha shimnikka!!" And then, perhaps, proceeds to buy some corn on the cob. My mother also had six siblings and was born somewhere in the middle of them. For those keeping score at home with calculators, this means that I have 20 aunts and uncles (not an even 24 when you minus points for messy divorces and/or never married aunts! Ka CHING!), 41 cousins and approximately 23 second cousins with two more currently in utero. Apparently, when the memo entitled "Birth Control" was sent around, my entire family rolled their eyes and collectively clicked "DELETE". ANYWAY. Raised in a suburb in Nassau County, Long Island, my mom was neither into mathematics or the Korean language. She spent her childhood learning the conventions of Catholicism and singing along to the radio in her room, pretending she was Karen Carpenter. A tomboy who loved to play sports, my mother was both outgoing and self-conscious, a magnetic extrovert and desperate overachiever who appeared on almost every page of the high school yearbook.Related Sidenote: On her kindergarten report card, her teacher had purposefully written in the comments section that Rita "Has a tendency to scream when excited." This could pretty much sum up my mother's entire life. At some point in her teen years, my mother made the transition from Catholic school to public Plainedge High School where one Dr. Paul Dlug was teaching pre-calculus and sporting a totally 70's mustache. Yes, here's the clincher, kids! Everyone's favorite part of the story: (No, not the mustache!) The fact that my father was my mother's high school math teacher. It's true. They are twelve years apart. And yes, it sounds all sorts of bizarre and sketchy and you're thinking maybe Oprah should do a segment on them BUT here's bits of the true story, in all its innocent 1975 glory: My parents did NOT date while my mother was a student, though they did spend time together in the computer lab while my father worked on his lesson plans and my mother wrote for the school newspaper. I like to believe there was chatting going on, teasing and possible gay laughter because hey, no one uses the word gay like that anymore. Also, people tell me that the computers in a computer lab in 1975 were very primitive, took up practically the whole room and did not have internet access. WHAT? Next you're going to tell me that back in 1975 there were no such things as blogs. HA! You're funny! Wait. Are you serious? Originally, my mother HATED my father's class and thought he was obnoxious and pompous despite his stallion good looks and very dry humor. She begged her parents to drop out like all her friends were doing because the material was too difficult. They forced her to stick with it and to this day, my father's class is the lowest grade on her transcript, an embarrassingly low "B". I know, I know, my mother? She is totally dumb for getting a B. Eventually warming up to his class (and the dreamy way he wears a button down shirt and tie, I assume), my mom kept track of all the funny things my dad said during class--his dumb but funny math jokes, his witty remarks to students, etc. She wrote them all down on a folder. By the end of the year, the phrases covered the entire thing, front and back. The folder is still alive and lives in her closet. Around Christmas of her senior year, my father wrote my mother a sweet note wondering if he could take her out sometime. He once told me that he had never met anyone so funny and so full of life as young Rita DeTrinis. But Rita was busy playing the field, wooing other men with her dynamic personality and fierce rendition of "Rainy Days and Mondays".
On March 17, 1975, my mother was given tickets to a basketball game by the family she babysat for. Her boyfriend at the time, Ron, couldn't go and my grandmother suggested she call Paul. (Why? I have no answer. My grandmother apparently thought my dad was a total PIMP. Which, duh.) Sooo my mom called him. And they went together. (Though not technically a DATE because um, she was dating a guy named RON. Ron sounds like a dork.)
But Ron, poor Ronald, would not last and my parents' first official date would be on June 29th, 1975. They went into New York City to see a tiny little show called "The Fantasticks". The opening number, "Try To Remember" would become their wedding song when they married roughly three years later.
At some point during their courtship, for whatever reason, they "took a break" and decided to see other people. My mother said when they made that choice, she fell into a depression for the first time in her life. She couldn't remember driving to class at college or going to work. Life passed by in a blur and she cried all the time thinking about a life without my father. This just goes to show you two very important things: 1) My parents were obviously meant for each other and 2) "Taking a Break" is the suckiest thing in the history of suck.
However, all was remedied when my father sent my mother a little Halloween card at the end of October. They realized how dumb they were being and got back together. Yes, male readers, this is all it takes to win back the woman you love. Nothing says PLEASE TAKE ME BACK I LOVE YOU FOREVER like a little card with pumpkins and bats on it.
Frankly, the courtship and subsequent engagement of my parents is very sweet and simple. My father proposed to her on one knee in the doorway of his apartment. Of course she said yes and then they probably made out. It's sweet. But really? It's a little boring.
So, I'm going to set the scene at a soda shop, where my parents sip ice cream floats and the waitresses wheel around on roller skates. All of a sudden, in comes a big tough guy with gold chains named Vinnie, a long time rival of my fathers. (Rival meaning he probably taught at Plainedge too, except in the Social Studies department.)
Anyway, in my fantasy world, Vinnie comes into the shop in a leather jacket and cuffed blue jeans with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the arm of his t-shirt. Vinnie has a posse with him (called "The Patriots" or "The Revolutionaries" or something) and naturally, they surround my dad, punching their fists into their palms, real threatening like. Vin tells my dad that he loves Rita and that no math teacher can have her so he better step off. At this point, my father throws down his stool and shouts something like, "Yeah? Well my differential equation can kick your capital-of-North-Dakota ass!"
Vinnie protests, "She's MINE, Dlug! Give it up!"
"No way, she's my girl now, Vinnie!" screams my dad and proceeds to get in a huge fist fight with Vinnie and ALL Vinnie's gangsta Social Studies pals. Dramatic music plays. My father, of course, emerges, triumphant with not a scratch on him, while a bloody-nosed Vinnie lays on the floor of the soda shop moaning softly amid all his pals. My mother screeches, "MY HERO!" and rushes into my father's arms. At this point, my dad gets down on one knee and proposes. She says yes and all the roller skate girls clap and cry.
Vinnie, still on the ground, mutters to one of his friends, "Where'd he learn how to fight like dat?"
"Didn't you know, Vinnie?" questions one of Vinnie's beat up pals, "Dr. Dlug was in 'Nam."
"No shit," says Vinnie who then gathers himself together and slinks out the door in defeat.
Okay, okay back to reality. (Good though inappropriately placed story, though, right? HEY YO!)
And so, my dad proposed and they were married on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1978, as snow fell outside the church and settled on the ground. They honeymooned in Acapulco, Mexico where the sand was so hot, it burned their feet. My father was 33, my mother was 21.
I don't know why I jotted this all down. I kept calling my parents to get the facts straight and they kept asking me what I was doing. Most importantly, I think this information is good for me to know, for our family's sake. It's a beautiful story. And maybe it helps me with my own soul searching as I try to focus on the love and commitment parts and ignore the fact that I'm already two years older than my mother was at the time of her wedding. (Cue: Biological Clock Freak Out!)
Mostly though, I've been thinking of how rare it is for a marriage to stay together that long. Twenty-eight years of marriage. 28. Longer than I have been alive. My parents have survived a lot of things together--my mom's supposed infertility, two miscarriages, the subsequent birth of four healthy children, unemployment, debt, a poor, no-good actor blogging daughter who occasionally begs them for money. I've seen firsthand what it takes to make it work, the sacrifice, the shouting matches, the gentle gestures.
Today my mother will undergo routine surgery on her breast. A lumpectomy. A doctor will give her anesthesia that will knock her out for 4-5 hours. He will cut open her breast and remove calcifications that have a 30% chance of being cancer and a 70% chance of ending up benign. Either way, they are taking out all suspicious cells and she will have a scar. Aside from her two D&C's when she miscarried, this is the first surgery my mother has ever experienced.
When the doctor told her that after the operation, she won't be able to swim for two months, my mother replied, "Well then, can we move the surgery to the end of September? Because this is the best part of beach season!"
The surgeon gaped at her and said, "This is serious surgery and I can't let you wait."
"Mom!!" I reprimanded her later. "Are you crazy?!"
"What!??" exclaimed my mother. "I love the beach!"
My father and I laughed later over this story.
"Can you believe her?" I asked.
"I know," he said. "What can I say? She loves to swim."
He then admitted to me that he is going to drive her to the surgery on Tuesday and wait there until it is over.
"But dad," I protested, "It's a four hour surgery."
"I know," he replied. "But I'll bring a book. And I'll wait. I want to wait there for her."
And I can hear it in his voice that he's unsure, that we know this is routine and women go through this every day and that even if it's cancer, the surgeon assured her that they will have caught it very early. But his voice is unsteady. And we both are silently pondering the "what ifs" that go along with this scenario. We deflect to other subjects for the rest of our conversation.
And I'm pretty sure that this is what I wanted to say when I started typing this afternoon. Yes, their separate lives are interesting and amusing but mainly, that their love is downright astounding. I could not have had better role models for a happy, healthy marriage. It's almost too much to live up to, that's how good it is. I also know that underneath the fights about money and the struggles with who's not listening and who's not being supportive, my father would essentially be lost without her.
I wonder what his life would've been like if she had not been placed in his math class. He'd be a lot less stressed and maybe have a lot more money, less responsibility of course. While it's hard to say, it's so easy to say what he would've missed out on. Easy to admit that he'd be undoubtedly lonely and devoid of all the beauty that she has shown him, barren of all the sparks that ignite when two people who fall in love end up together and manage to keep those feelings alive.
I can't express how it feels to know that while my mother's body is being cut open and invaded, my father will be quietly turning pages in a book. The image is burned to my brain: my father patiently waiting, trying to distract himself, passing the hours there so that he can be there when she wakes up. And I think we both know she'll be alright. We believe that anyway, just so we don't get scared.
And dad? Whether it goes well or not, you will be there. Waiting. And that makes a really big difference. To me and more importantly, to her. And if worse comes to worse, you can always get her a Halloween card. I heard she really likes those.
