Day #13 Writing Through Covid-19: Love in the Time of Coronavirus

My mother dotes on my dad. It's both sweet and nauseating. She calls him "Berry" and tells (and retells) the story of how they met as camp counselors in Michigan.

My mother was 22 and married to Chuck. She thought my dad was about 19. She was irritated by how the camp nurse drooled over Leroy Berryhill. That fall Chuck died of sinus cancer; he and my mother had been married only two years.

The following summer my parents again both worked at the camp, my mother now single. When my shy father stopped by her cabin (I forget why), she was on the top bunk. "I suddenly realized how blue his eyes were!" She still nearly squeals when she says this line.

When he turned to go, Leroy asked Meredith if she'd like to go canoeing sometime. She said yes, but the flu then went through the camp, and my dad (who had only one year of medical school under his belt) was needed in the infirmary. The summer came to a close, and he asked my mother if he could write to her. They courted through letters, which they keep in a scrapbook. They finally went canoeing on their honeymoon--and named their canoe Homoca (for HOneyMOon CAnoe).

They are openly affectionate, often holding hands. Growing up, I thought everyone's parents shared a long, passionate kiss in the kitchen when the dad came home from work. When we were little, we liked to squeeze in between their embrace for a "sandwich."

My mother's middle initials are TMI, and over the years she has told me way more than I wanted to know about her sex life. I have a memory from when I was five, sitting on her lap as she explained that people "had intercourse" not only to conceive children but also for pleasure. I  scrambled off her lap in shock and disgust.

They still flirt shamelessly.

My own story of meeting my husband (inebriated, both of us following friends into a divorce party thrown by a woman neither of us knew) does not hold up well against my parents'. Nor do Dan and I make out in the kitchen when he walks in at the end of the day. Sometimes we say Hi.

Next week Dan and I will mark 36 years of marriage. We have six far-flung children and a life we've woven together from his serious warp and my giddy weft.  We are better together because I keep him hopping and he keeps me steady.

My parents have never been close to Dan. (Remember, I have not been close to my parents for most of my life.) To minimize germ transfer, I am the only well-scrubbed person who enters my parents' basement sanctum.

Dan is starting fieldwork (anhydrous, in case Tyler wondered, Missy). He is working 14-hour days while the price of grain hits staggering lows. He's kind of crabby. But tonight he told me he knows how hard I'm working to keep my parents fed and tended.

I needed to hear that.

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison

My favorite photo of Dan.