Rosalita as a marriage counselor

I heard the Springsteen song Rosalita as I was doing the dishes the other night and I immediately pictured a group of inebriated 40 somethings jumping off the stage in the Catholic School hall. My sister and brother-in-law were part of the group. Actually, they might be considered the Ringleaders. They had rented the room for The Party, an annual event that was so famous it had its own soundtrack which included Rosalita at just the time in the evening where people were prone to jumping off stages.

Why am I writing on my mommy blog about my older sister’s party? The party that actually stopped the year I was finally old enough to attend? (The injustice!) The answer to that question is simply: the party hosts. All their friends and family came to this thing-every year, for years. I finally got a chance to bartend (not Attend mind you) The Final Party (they had shirts-see what I mean?) when I was 20 and it was clear by the huge crowd in that room that my sister and her husband were something special.
I have written a lot lately about the partnership The Husband and I have. I have written before about the role models his parents are for both of us. Yet, in all this time, I have never written about any of the people who taught me about marriage.

Because my father died when I was young I only have stories of my parents’ marriage. My sister, being the oldest, had the most time with them as not only a parental unit, but as a married couple. My guess is she was influenced by them.

I, in turn, was influenced by her and her husband. I am not sure I was even aware of it until recently. Maybe not even until I heard Bruce sing that song.

My brother in law and sister have been married for almost 30 years (holy cow!). I was the six year old flower girl at their wedding. I can’t remember my life before Sam and Marcie were, well… SamandMarcie. A unit. A team.

From the time I was six, what I learned from them was exactly what my sister and I both had emblazoned across our equally tacky wedding programs 18 years apart:Marry Your Best Friend.

For better or worse, most certainly in sickness and in health, my sister and her best friend have stood together-hand in hand-even if it meant jumping off a stage and risking broken bones together.

If asked, they would probably choose each other to spend time with. Sure, they each have separate passions (Sam has never attended our annual Outlet Outing and Marcie spends far less time in front of computer games) but they each enjoy each other and doing things together more often than not.

My husband and I spent some weekend nights with my sister and her husband when lived in MD. Even before we had kids and could have done other things, we chose a Saturday night meal and conversation with Marcie and Sam. There is always lively debate, great food and new music.

What we also got out of those nights, The husband and I, was a glimpse into our future. My sister and her husband work like a well oiled machine. They tackle everything as a team, from Saffron Rice and Grilled Pork to a baby at 40 something and Life Altering Multiple Sclerosis.

They fight-sure. They argue-sure. They roll their eyes at each other-often. But it is evident, both by the look behind those rolled eyes and by the simple truth that they are still waking up together 30 years later, that despite the fact that they took the vows on an alter of a church neither believes in-they took them very seriously.

You could find flaws in their union. Name a union that isn’t flawed. You could focus on the bickering. You could focus on things about them that aren’t perfect. Don’t we all have those? But what I see is this: in 30 years, they have weathered storms. They have rolled with the tide. They have laughed. They have loved. The have had health, and very real sickness. They have lived through richer and poorer and richer and poorer again. They have raised a son and some might say (as they were married young) raised each other. As my sister so eloquently put it at my wedding, they have proven that the partnership of a youngest Mountaineer educated and an oldest Jesuit educated seems to work out pretty darn well. No matter what they come up against, they stand beside their best friend.
What more could The Oldest Jesuit educate Husband and I (Youngest Mountaineer) ask for in role models than that?

Excuse me now. I feel the urge to find a stage to jump off.