How Did We Ever Get This Far?

Forty years ago on August 9th, Karin and I got married in a civil ceremony at the Rathaus in Bad Mergentheim, West Germany. Two days later, we got married in a religious service in the Evangelisch (Lutheran) church in Karin’s home village of Edelfingen. Now is a time to reflect on what has happened during the last four decades. One question that keeps coming back to me is:

“How did we ever get this far?”

My answer is: “I don’t know.”

Karin and I briefly looked at old wedding pictures. I don’t enjoy doing that. I get an overpowering feeling of melancholy when see the photos. Part of that is due to the fact that many of the people in the pictures are dead. That happens after forty years go by. Even the people who have survived to this point are barely recognizable to me. I stare at the images of Karin and me, and I have to ask myself, “Who the hell are they?”

Karin and I have changed. That’s obvious to ourselves and to anybody else who knows us. I don’t just mean in physical appearance. That’s the least of it. Our beliefs, our values, and our attitudes have matured. In a very real sense, the two newlyweds in the pictures are strangers to me. I am not sure what I have in common with the man I was back in 1984.

The beginning of our relationship is still a mystery to me. I know how it happened, but I have never understood why. I was a career military officer. She was a pacifist. I flew helicopters. She was a seamstress. I was American, and Karin was (and still is) a German. The attraction, whatever it was, did not have a rational basis. It was intuitive. It didn’t make sense then, and it probably doesn’t now.

In her song Because the Night, Patti Smith said, “Love is an angel disguised as lust.” That angel visited us early on, but she didn’t stay for our entire marriage. Passion fades over time. There had to be other reasons for us to stay together. I asked Karin once why she married me. She replied that she fell in love with my soul. I guess I fell in love with hers too.

In a long-term relationship (it doesn’t have to be a marriage), there is the potential for each partner to experience personal growth. I think that Karin and I pushed each other to become the man or woman we were always meant to be. Sometimes, we gently nudged each other. Sometimes, we gave the other one a swift kick in the ass. Mostly, we showed each other new things. I learned to speak German by dating her. She introduced me to Waldorf education when our kids were of school age. I took her to mosques and synagogues and Buddhist temples. We had our own interests, but we opened doors for each other. We saw the world through each other’s eyes.

I guess I always knew that Karin was a fiber artist. After all, she requested a spinning wheel rather than an engagement ring before we got married. I was attracted by her creativity. I still am. She can do magic with her hands. She spins and knits and weaves and dyes, and God only knows what else. She has that wild genius that makes her endlessly inventive, but it also keeps her from finding her car keys.

We stuck together. I don’t how we did that, but we did. Our marriage was a covenant. We were committed to stand by each other even when one of us fell apart. Carl Jung once said that in a marriage each partner agrees to hold the leash to the other’s nethermost beast. Karin held the leash to mine many times.

Now, after forty years, our marriage is strong because we have a common purpose. That purpose has a name: Asher. We have to work together to raise this little grandson of ours. We still quarrel at times. We still have disagreements. But we have to work as a team for the sake of somebody else, somebody who needs both of us all the time. Maybe we have always had a common purpose, but we didn’t think to name it.

In his book, The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran speaks of marriage:

“You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your ashes. Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.”

Karin and I are close together, but we let those winds swirl and dance in our midst. 

_____________________________

Frank (Francis) Pauc is a graduate of West Point, Class of 1980. He completed the Military Intelligence Basic Course at Fort Huachuca and then went to Flight School at Fort Rucker. Frank was stationed with the 3rd Armor Division in West Germany at Fliegerhorst Airfield from December 1981 to January 1985. He flew Hueys and Black Hawks and was next assigned to the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord, CA. He got the hell out of the Army in August 1986.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.