"My sails are filled with your perfume. Here I am, floating in this moment of moments. Feel the wind and know that it whispers its blessing."
The love that Sarah and Mike share was very evident at their wedding. Their beautiful vows were spoken with such feeling. And knowing as I did that they would be facing difficulties in the future I listened with tears of joy and sadness.
When Mike spoke so emotionally at the reception about his deep love for Sarah he spoke straight from his heart - the words just spilled out. That is a moment I will always remember and treasure.
Another moment that remains with me occurred one evening in 2009 when Mike received the devastating information that his tumour was changing. He came back from the hospital and was unbelievably matter-of-fact as he explained to Neil what he had seen on an MRI. Sarah and Mike then settled in front of the TV to relax, each in their own chairs side by side. Mike's hand reached out and held on to Sarah's. No words were spoken in that moment but so much was communicated.
Below are readings from the wedding. I think that they beautifully describe Sarah and Mike's relationship. They are written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh and can be found in her book A Gift from the Sea.
One recognizes the truth of Saint Exupery's line: " Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction." For in fact , man and woman are not only looking outward in the same direction, they are working outward. Here one forms ties, roots, a firm base.
Here the bonds of marriage are formed. For marriage, which is always spoken of as a bond, becomes actually, in this stage, many strands, of different texture and strength, making up a web that is taut and firm. The web is fashioned of love. Yes, but many kinds of love: romantic love first, then a slow-growing devotion and , playing through these, a constantly rippling companionship. It is made of loyalties, and interdependencies, and shared experiences. It is woven of memories of meetings and conflicts; of triumphs and disappointments. It is a web of communication, a common language, and the acceptance of lack of language too, a knowledge of likes and dislikes, of habits and reactions, both physical and mental. It is a web of instincts and intuitions, and known and unknown exchanges. The web of marriage is made by propinquity, in the day to day living side by side, looking outward and working outward in the same direction. It is woven in space and in time of the substance of life itself.
A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart's. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm , the heavy hand: only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back -- it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.
Sarah and Mike's love is a love that lasts forever,
Carolyn
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