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YEARS OF ENDURANCE
PUNCTUATED BY ROMANCE
Journal of Healing – April 19, 2006
By Mary Koch

“A college degree,” the professor said, “is less a measure of intelligence and more a measure of endurance.”

His statement echoed through some 35 intervening years when my husband and I recently noted our 27th anniversary of marriage. A wedding anniversary, I observed to myself, is less a measure of romance and more a measure of endurance.

The professor’s off-hand comment came during one of his daily ramblings in a senior-level communications class at the University of Washington. Working full-time and struggling to commute across Puget Sound to class, I chafed at the celebrated professor’s casual approach to teaching. But the course was one of a handful I needed to complete my degree.

Safely tenured, the professor never prepared lecture notes but spent our class time shooting the breeze (there’s a better euphemism that I’m resisting). It was his approach to motivating upper-level students to move beyond lock-step education and think for themselves.

* * *

IT WORKED for me – though not in the way he anticipated. I thought about his “endurance” comment and decided that I would prefer to endure somewhere else. I left the university.

Even though I’ve never regretted my decision, I don’t recommend my path to others, especially students who are enduring those final, tedious months of class before summer break. No matter where you are, you’re going to have to endure. But you can choose to endure for greater or lesser reasons.

It’s not as bleak as 18th century writer Samuel Johnson suggests: “Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.” I don’t know if Johnson had endurance in mind when he also observed, “Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.” The rascal.

I suspect, therefore, that even Samuel Johnson would agree, endurance has its own rewards.

* * *

JOHN AND I never were much for big anniversary celebrations. We give the event priority depending on what other things are happening in our lives and how much time we have to devote to it – usually little or none.

One of my favorites was the year we spent our anniversary touring the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

We’d forgotten it was our anniversary until we signed and noted the date on the release that promised we wouldn’t hold the government responsible for any injuries we might suffer should hostilities break out during our visit. Hostilities between nations, that is. We joked that the DMZ would be an appropriate place for any number of married couples to mark an anniversary.

We did a bit of a hoorah for our 25th, with the renewal of vows, cake and party that seem to be called for with such a milestone. But 27? Hardly noticeable.

I spent much of the day contemplating how we endure as a couple and as individuals. Together we endure our situation, and the longer we endure, the more we appreciate.

I endure that John, who had been my pillar of strength, is now totally dependent on me. But his greatest strength – patience – endures.

“Are you ready for your shower?” I chirped that anniversary morning and cringed when I heard my patronizing-nurse tone of voice. John is a master of endurance.

Very little romance, indeed, on our anniversary. But a few weeks earlier, when John went shopping with his aide Marlenea, he returned home with his arms full of daffodils. No particular reason other than a spontaneous gift of spring. Now there’s romance. That’s why, and how, we endure.

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