Today is Jeanne’s birthday. Although I doubt she would mind (much), I won’t reveal the number. Suffice it to say that Jeanne is nine months older than I am. We’ve always said that she’s old enough to be my mother. Every June 9th I have posted a birthday essay–one of them, repeated more than once, is among the most popular essays I’ve ever posted among our mutual friends and family who know both of us well.
What more can I say (after more than 34 years together) about the joys of being in love and living with your best friend? I realize that, after more than three decades of being a college professor, that what I really am is a story-teller. So let me tell you a couple of stories.
Story 1: Some years ago, Jeanne and I had brunch with two couples after church, a lovely occasion that we all agreed should happen more frequently. All six of us had been to a few rodeos—I was the youngest person at the table. Sadly, both members of one couple have passed in the intervening years. One of our friends’ birthday had occurred a week or so earlier, so we all sang happy birthday as the waiter brought her a small dessert. The waiter remarked on Jeanne’s beautiful singing voice, a nice connection was made, and good vibes were in abundance.
Jeanne and I are generous with tips when the service is good; this time, Jeanne was so generous when bill-paying time came that the waiter returned with the cash, wondering if Jeanne had made a mistake. She assured him that she hadn’t; we then learned he would be headed for LA in a month to pursue a career in entertainment promotion. Grabbing his hands, Jeanne offered a quick, heartfelt and spontaneous prayer asking for the Divine’s blessing on this young man’s endeavors. “I’ll remember you,” he said to Jeanne as he headed back to the kitchen. And I’m sure he did—it was a lovely moment of grace in the midst of an ordinary Sunday afternoon.
That’s Jeanne for you–spontaneous, generous, perceptive, and willing to go where Big Bird leads. This is the place where if I was bound by cliches I would say that Jeanne’s the person I want to be when I grow up. But I don’t–we’re way too different from each other for me to want that. But more than three deacades with Jeanne has made me slightly more spontaneous, generous, and open to the possibility that the Divine might say something in real time. That’s a good thing.
Story 2: Jeanne and I had a lovely phone conversation with Suzy and Michael, our friends in Florida (there’s no accounting for taste), last week. Michael taught in the theology department for a few years at my college during my first five-or-so years there. He then had the poor taste to leave for a teaching position in Florida–I just finished year twenty-eight at the college he used to teach at. Michael and Suzy are among Jeanne’s and my closest friends. Their oldest son Charlie was still a baby when we met for the first time. He is now twenty-something and a successful chef at a high-end restaurant in Boston; he and his longtime partner Emily got married last November at a beautiful ceremony at the public library here in Providence. Jeanne and I consider ourselves to be Charlie and Emily’s surrogate New England parents.
Michael and Suzy have three sons. The middle son, Ben, is creating a successful career in business and undoubtedly making significantly more money than either his dad or I make, while their youngest, Sam, is in college. The boys grew up with Jeanne and me in their home regularly, and even now still call us “Miss Jeanne” and “Mister Vance.’ Michael and Suzy were visiting Ben and his girlfriend in Miami a few weeks ago; Suzy made sure on our phone call to tell us about something that happened while they were there.
Michael and Suzy are dog people just as Jeanne and I are—I can (unfortunately) track just how long we have known each other by considering how many dogs between us have lived a long, happy life and passed on to the Canine Elysian Fields during the years of our friendship. One of Suzy’s and Michael’s current canine duo is Nora, a lovely dog they rescued who happens to be missing her front right leg. She’s a great dog and is thriving in the loving atmosphere that Suzy and Michael create for every living thing that crosses their threshold.
Nora was along for the Miami visit. As the group was taking Nora for a walk one morning, a woman stopped her car, rolled her window down, and expressed how impressed she was that that Michael and Suzy had, out of the millions of dogs available for adoption, chosen this three-legged canine to be part of their family.
Later in the day when Nora and her posse were once again out and about, the same woman, this time from the other side of the street, was even more effusive in her praise for the high moral quality and off-the-charts empathy obviously possessed by any people who would choose to give a home to a three-legged dog. Ben said perceptively to his parents: “I think we just met the Miss Jeanne of Miami Lakes!” And Ben was right.
Last Saturday was to be an early birthday present as we had tickets to a concert in Boston. Some well-known contemporary Christian artists were on the card—Jeanne is a big fan of that sort of music. I definitely am not, but I’m the one who learned about the concert, verified that she would like to go, then purchased the tickets three months ago. That’s what love will do for you.
Then on my Saturday morning bike ride I had a significant crash. I got a 10-mile ambulance ride to the hospital emergency room; Jeanne met me there and as soon as she saw me with my head wrapped in a turban-like bandage and my neck in a brace, she pronounced “we’re not going anywhere.” She could, of course, have gone to the concert but instead spent the next six hours with me in the ER, capped off by letting me squeeze the stuffing out of her hand as the doctor sewed thirty stiches above my right eye. That’s what love will do for you.
As I write this a couple of days before Jeanne’s birthday, I look like I’ve gone fifteen rounds with Muhammad Ali and been dragged under a truck for several hundred yards. I’ll spare you a picture. Jeanne has been planning a fancy restaurant dinner for us with a few select friends the day after her birthday but said to me this morning that “we don’t have to go out on Friday. You’re not going to want to go out looking like that.” I suspect that was an indirect way of saying “I don’t want to go out with someone who looks like that.”
But if not tomorrow evening, then as soon as I am publicly presentable we will have a great, expensive dinner with good friends to celebrate the privilege of sharing time and space with the most spectacular human being I know. Happy birthday, my dear! You’re the best.
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