Dedicated
Linda J. White-Porte

Dedicated To My Parents On The Occasion Of Their 50th Wedding Anniversary

The Beginning
July 7, 1949. The young couple stood before the Justice of the Peace. She was 21, he was 30. It had taken them three years to get here, but they were sure this was what they wanted. They had crossed state lines to be in this place at this time. No one can ever be sure what the future holds, but they knew that whatever that future was, they wanted to face it together.
The words of the simple ceremony were recited, first by one, and then by the other:
…to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse,
for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish…
What leap of faith made them believe two such different people could make it? Samuel, the product of a "normal" family, previously married, six children. Aletha, the product of what we would today term a dysfunctional family, never married, never expected to have children. The age difference. The responsibilities of child support. Being black in 1949. And yet, there they were. A connection had been made. The Justice of the Peace proclaimed them man and wife and they left, to begin their journey together.

The Present - July 7, 1999
I remember it as if it were yesterday. On October 14, 1989, forty years after Samuel and Aletha first said their vows, they gazed at their first grandchild. A child born in the desert seeing snow for the first time could not have been more awestruck. They were in love with a tiny four and one-half pound little boy. How lucky this little child was! Yet somehow I knew that they were also remembering the day their first child was born. Surely they must have felt as I felt - frightened, scared, petrified at the responsibility. Yet they had managed to go through this three times. They had been successful. They were the experts. I was only a novice and the questions overwhelmed me. Could I ever be the mother that my mother was? Could I provide the type of home my parents had provided for me? Where and how do you learn to be a parent, a good parent? Who taught my parents? Who would teach my husband? Who would teach me?
Now, ten years later, I still ponder those questions but perhaps I have found the answer. Answers sometimes come as revelations when you least expect them. My answers came through the reading of a poem, "What You Know First" by Patricia Maclachlan. She wrote, "…what you know first stays with you…" and I asked myself, and tried to remember - what did I know first?



It could have been
The comfort of my mother's embrace,
My father changing my diaper and feeding me,
A big sister looking at me, perhaps at first with resentment,
And then,
Teaching me what I needed to know or
A little brother looking to me for the same guidance.

Or maybe
It was knowing I was a part of a family-
A mother, a father, a sister, a brother.
I did not know that it was rare.

Or maybe
It was the nights spent
Reading together,
Listening to the radio together,
Playing Scrabble together.
The warmth that I felt then, I can still remember when I remember
Those moments.

Or maybe
It was supporting each other through each crisis-
Cancer, alcoholism, divorce, death.
But we remembered to celebrate too,
Graduations, birthdays, weddings,
And a birth.

What you know first stays with you.
Patricia Maclachlan learned that from her father.
I learned it's not always an exact moment or an exact thing but
An overall feeling.

What I knew first was love-
Learned from two people who have spent 50 years
Loving.
And so when I ask the question,
How do you learn to be a good parent?
I know the answer.

What you know first stays with you and
It is a gift that you can give to each generation.
It is what I can give my son.
And he will know- and remember-what he knew first.