The Marriage Book (66 page)

SICKNESS AND HEALTH

“A DEATH-BED MARRIAGE”

SAN FRANCISCO DAILY EVENING BULLETIN
, 1866

On our third page will be found the notice of a marriage which took place in this city on Wednesday last, followed by the announcement of the death of the bridegroom on the following day. The circumstances of this case make it one of sad and peculiar interest. It not unfrequently happens that a bride or groom, soon after the performance of that rite which knits the dearest and holiest of bonds, is suddenly taken away in the midst of health and a new-found happiness. Then the affliction is indeed terrible to the bereaved, because unanticipated. But in the present instance, the young man having returned recently from the army, was confined to his bedroom from a disease contracted in the service. Day by day he sank visibly, and it was evident that his end was not far distant. In this extremity his affianced asked that the marriage ceremony might be no longer delayed, in order that she might be his bride, though but a few short hours, that for a lifetime she might be the widow of one who had so bravely served his country. Under these circumstances the marriage was consummated; and so it comes to pass that between the wedding and the burial there lies but the breadth of a single day.

CYRIL CONNOLLY

THE UNQUIET GRAVE
, 1944

British author Cyril Connolly (1903–1974) cofounded the magazine
Horizon
, contributed influential essays and criticism to various publications, and published a novel. But some of his best-known works are no longer than a sentence, mainly because he collected his aphorisms in his book
The Unquiet Grave
.

The true index of a man’s character is the health of his wife.

DANA REEVE

LETTER TO CHRISTOPHER REEVE, 1996

Dana Morosini Reeve (1961–2006) wrote this letter on the fourth anniversary of her marriage to actor Christopher Reeve, most famous for playing Superman in a series of successful films. In 1995, a horse-riding accident left him a quadriplegic, but his resolve to persevere and hers to support him as they raised money for stem-cell research brought the couple a different kind of renown. He died in 2004 of cardiac arrest; she, two years later of lung cancer.

My darling Toph,

This path we are on is unpredictable, mysterious, profoundly challenging, and yes, even fulfilling. It is a path we chose to embark on together and for all the brambles and obstructions that have come our way of late, I have no regrets. In fact, all of our difficulties have shown me how deeply I love you and how grateful I am that we can follow this path together. Our future will be bright, my darling one, because we have each other and our young ’uns.

With all my heart and soul,

I love you,

Dana

JOHN GOTTMAN AND NAN SILVER

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES FOR MAKING MARRIAGE WORK
, 1999

For background on Gottman and Silver, see
Friendship
.

When we tested the immune system responses of the fifty couples who stayed overnight in the Love Lab, we found a striking difference between those who were very satisfied with their marriages and those whose emotional response to each other was neutral or who were unhappy. Specifically, we used blood samples from each subject to test the response of certain of their white blood cells—the immune system’s major defense weapons. In general, happily married men and women showed a greater proliferation of these white blood cells when exposed to foreign invaders than did the other subjects.

We also tested the effectiveness of other immune system warriors—the natural killer cells, which, true to their name, destroy body cells that have been damaged or altered (such as
infected or cancerous ones) and are known to limit the growth of tumor cells. Again, subjects who were satisfied with their marriage had more effective natural killer cells than did the others.

It will take more study before scientists can confirm that this boost in the immune system is one of the mechanisms by which a good marriage benefits your health and longevity. But what’s most important is that we know for certain that a good marriage does.

RICHARD COHEN

BLINDSIDED
, 2004

Journalist Richard Cohen (1948–) was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in his twenties and with colon cancer in his fifties. A former CBS news producer and three-time Emmy Award winner, he married the TV host Meredith Vieira in 1986; they have three children.

Smiling your way through sickness is a preposterous plan, though it can work wonders from time to time. My rose-colored glasses went into a drawer long ago. They are gathering dust, lying next to Meredith’s cracked lenses of the same hue. Meredith had to discard dreams too soon in her life. She cannot have bargained for a relationship so defined by diseases. But that is what she got.

When Meredith learned in the spring of 2002 that
Ladies’ Home Journal
was planning another cover story about her for the following September, the black humor around our kitchen table ignited spontaneously. I started the pointed jokes about being cast as Richard, the house cripple. Meredith likes
LHJ,
but she half joined in. I could smell tragedy in the oven, just baking away.

Here we go again was all I could think. An
LHJ
cover story in October 2000 had been a sob story, the tale of the rising star and her crumpling husband, portraying me as physically devastated and Meredith as all-suffering. The magazine’s cover and index chose the words “heartbreaking” and “devastating” to highlight my condition. Neither applied.

“Meredith Vieira’s tears begin without warning,” the magazine wrote back then. That was the opening line. The tears are real and occasionally present in our house. Meredith has her emotional threshold, frequently different from mine. The tears are tempered with strength, however, and to lead this article with this maudlin suggestion that Meredith is only a weeping willow is misleading. Meredith can be one tough broad.

Now I was certain I would be portrayed in this next profile as even more of a wreck. Colon cancer had struck again, and I had written a series of very candid, personal essays in the
New York Times
about my health struggles, so I had already gone public. Meredith’s life would be
presented as even more of a soap opera. I did not like what I saw coming. “You should pose for the cover, sitting, perched on the arm of a wheelchair,” I suggested. “Or maybe you should lie next to me in an oxygen tent.” Meredith had a better idea. “How about if I just get out that cute little black dress I bought for your funeral, you know, just before the cancer surgery,” she offered with a giggle. “I was so disappointed I never got to wear it.”

My pessimistic scenario did not play out. The article was okay, only because Meredith headed off the martyr mania at the pass. I happened to call Meredith on her cellphone while she was lunching with the writer for the
Journal
piece. “Yeah, I am being interviewed,” Meredith is quoted in the article as saying to me. “I am just at the part when I say I have to take care of you because you’re a shadow of a man.” Notes the interviewer, “My terminally pleasant interviewer’s face freezes into what I suspect is a gargoyle-like grimace.” I believe she got the point.

JESSICA AND ANTHONY VILLARREAL

STORYCORPS RECORDING, 2013

A Marine corporal serving in Afghanistan, Anthony Villarreal was just twenty-two years old in 2008 when his truck was hit by a roadside bomb. He suffered third-degree burns that covered his face and most of his body and eventually led to the amputation of his left arm and several fingers on his right hand. He and his wife, Jessica, twenty-one, had only recently married. For a StoryCorps project, they talked to each other about what it was like to be reunited.

T

TOASTS

MEL BROOKS, 1985

Offering a toast at the wedding of our friends Kate Lear and Jon LaPook, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks reprised their famous
2000 Year Old Man
routine. In character as the interviewer, Reiner asked Brooks: “Sir, you have lived a long time, you’ve seen many marriages. What advice would you give to this young couple to live a happy and fruitful life?” This was the pseudo-sage’s advice.

Ignore each other.

No, I say that with love and spirit and spirit and love and in feeling and sentiment and romance and spirit and love. I’m saying that all in love. Ignore each other.

Because the more you find out about each other, the more disenchanted, the more disgusted, the more you realize you’re just plain people like each other, and you’ll hate each other because the same hatred you feel for yourselves you’re going to throw on each other. So keep the mystery alive.

When Dr. LaPook comes home at night, Kate should say, “Who is it?” and Dr. LaPook should say, “It’s Irving.”

Never give your real name in marriage. Never. Once they know your real name in a marriage, you’re finished.

. . . No seriously. Let me be serious. Don’t give away too much. You’ll be married a long time.

TRIUMPHS

SAMUEL JOHNSON, CIRCA 1770

This was the comment that Dr. Johnson (see
Devotion
;
Infidelity
) made in regard to a widower who had remarried right after his first wife’s death.

[A second marriage is] the triumph of hope over experience.

H. L. MENCKEN AND GEORGE JEAN NATHAN

HELIOGABALUS
, 1920

Mencken (see
Adam and Eve
;
Expectations
;
Jealousy
) and drama critic George Jean Nathan (1882–1958) were founders of
The American Mercury
magazine.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

CARRIE FISHER

WISHFUL DRINKING
, 2008

Daughter of Debbie Reynolds, star of
Star Wars
, screenwriter, novelist, and recovering alcoholic, Carrie Fisher (1956–) wrote and performed
Wishful Drinking
as a one-woman show before publishing it in book form. She was married to singer/songwriter Paul Simon for two years but with him on and off for more than a dozen.

Remarrying the same person is the triumph of nostalgia over judgment.

U

UNMARRIED

ELIZABETH I, 1563

For Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), being unmarried was a tool, sometimes a weapon, as she astutely played one would-be suitor against another, all the while maintaining her power as British sovereign and staking her reputation as “the Virgin Queen.” She is supposed to have said the following when an envoy from the Holy Roman court was sent to negotiate a marriage with the Austrian archduke.

If I am to disclose to you what I should prefer if I followed the inclination of my nature, it is this: Beggar-woman and single, far rather than Queen and married.

“THE OLD MAID’S APOLOGY,” 1801

Unsigned, this poem appeared in a short-lived American periodical called
The Lady’s Magazine and Musical Repository
.