How I’m Remembering My Parents’ Imperfect Marriage Before Alzheimer’s Now

Today would’ve been my parents’ 45th wedding anniversary. It is difficult to write about my parents’ marriage before Alzheimer’s when my mother has been dead for 9 years and my father has remarried twice since then.

My parents had an Aggie romance. They met at Texas A&M through a mutual friend. Their first date was Midnight Yell Practice at Kyle Field.

This is how I’m remembering my parents’ imperfect marriage before Alzheimer’s.

They were married (only a few months after they met) on campus in All Faiths Chapel and had their reception in the Memorial Student Center. The groom’s cake was a block “T”. As a child, I remember being shocked when I learned that the flowers were fake in their 1977 wedding!

They attended A&M church of Christ together. Their first house was a small brick one they rented on Fairview in an older neighborhood near campus. I drove by the house often when a close friend was renting a house on the same street but it’s since been demolished. They had a Doberman Pinscher named Sheba, who lived through their moves from Bryan-College Station to Round Rock and then to north Austin to the house they lived in when I was born.

My parents’ imperfect marriage before Alzheimer’s disease

My parents’ marriage before Alzheimer’s certainly wasn’t perfect. My mother loved my father immensely but was frequently upset with him because they were raised in very different families and his upbringing taught him to be impulsive and unkind. They did not hide their arguments from myself or my brother. When I asked my mother why she married my dad (I think she was mad at him at the time), she said “because he has a good heart.”

I believe that my mother gave me a skewed view of marriage by teaching me that she was supposed to love God, then her children, then her husband in that order. I have since learned that, biblically, my husband is supposed to come before my children on my priority list. I have also learned that a wife should always be respectful of her husband in front of her children and teach them to always be respectful of him, and I think she failed to do that.

Most importantly, I believe she burdened me with negative information about their marriage and his childhood when I was much too young and that that information affected my relationship with my father.

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

1 Peter 3:1-22 ESV

In light of my parents’ anniversary and the spirit of Christmas and love and forgiveness, I am going to share some good things about my dad:

He loved to make us breakfast on the weekends, especially cinnamon toast. He taught me how to make pancakes and always made us milkshakes out of bananas that were turning brown.

He enjoyed shopping for my mother and taking her to new and favorite places and picked out nice jewelry or clothes for her at birthdays and holidays. Wanting us to have more than he did growing up, he worked long hours (sometimes involving long commutes) to make sure that we always had more than enough food, clothes, toys, medical care, etc. and a nice house in a good school district.

I loved “modeling” my new outfits for him after my mom took me clothes shopping. (I remember probably the last time I did this was in high school when he told me my pants were too tight and to stop buying red shirts. “All your shirts are red!”

I also remember him wisely telling me to stop wearing my leather-soled cowboy boots nonstop all over campus and at work during college for the sake of my back and the boot soles.) He also taught me the proper way to hang pants.

He played the oldies radio station in the car and taught me to love music from his childhood like The Beatles. He helped me learn to drive because my mother was such a basket case trying to teach me.

He taught me to take care of expensive things, like houses and vehicles, so that they would hold their value. Sharing his love of soccer, he taught us to value physical fitness.

Because he knew the value of a college education, he paid for my tuition and various other expenses and gave me money that I used to go on a university trip to London.

When my mother disapproved of a decision I made in college and briefly stopped talking to me (I know now that she was already in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease), my dad called me to make sure I knew that they still loved me regardless of my choice.

He taught me the value of being involved in church and serving my community. He taught us to never be afraid to meet new people or try new things (my brother may have taken this one a little too far). And he taught me to set goals and believe in second chances.

A version of this post was originally published December 17, 2012.