The Mortar Moments of Marriage

The Mortar Moments of Marriage

To see which pieces needed to be used and which ones needed to be discarded, my husband had to sift through the rocks that were as different in shape and color as the clouds in an awakening sky. The selected rocks were then slathered with mortar and placed against wire mesh and tarpaper nailed in 5 x 5 inch increments to the base plywood of our home. For both beauty and for strength, it was important that the space between one rock and another be so small, the mortar wove around them like slim gray ribbon.

Once Randy began, there was no turning back, for it was easier to keep working upward than it was to chip away at what was already there. Sometimes – when the humidity was high and his energy low – he wanted to stop, and I wouldn’t have blamed him. But even when mortar dusk thickened his eyebrows and his t-shirt clung to his spine with sweat, he continued.

After he was finally completed and we stood back to admire the word of his hands, I saw the metaphor that was right before my eyes. In September, Randy and I will be married four years, so I do not pretend to know everything about marriage that there is to know, but I have experienced enough to realize that the process requires determination, patience, and time.

Despite revelations learned only after two gilded bonds made us one (my eyes cross over boot prints marring my kitchen floor; Randy hates to hike unless he has a gun strap over his shoulder or a waterfall destination marked on a map), we have sifted through the colorful differences between us, learned which differences can be made compatible and which ones should be discarded, and continued to move upward.

Still, at times it seems easier just to chip away at each other than it is to chisel away at our own rough edges, but then the mortar moments come: Randy seeing me walking the perimeter of our property and, even though he has a cold, hopping on the mower to cut the long grass harboring ticks and chiggers; the two of us reclining on the bed to trace eyes over our sleeping daughter and trying to claim each feature as a smaller version of our own; hearing my mountain man talk so openly about the love he has for our firstborn child that I have to press my fingertips into the counter to keep my love for him from spilling down my cheeks.

These are the moments that smooth away the rough edges of marriage, and once time sets love on a more solid foundation, we can step back and see the slim ribbon of mortar weaving seamlessly between two very different people, twining them together as one.

(Fireplace built by my husband’s hands.)