The Oppenheimer Report 6/2/14

The "courting" phase

Presently we have Shauna’s mom up here at the lake house with us. We picked her up on our return from the Taft reunion in Connecticut and rescued her from her 24-7 caregivers for a week. This has turned into a longer stay than we’d originally intended, because we wanted Ethel to be here for our 20^th wedding anniversary. Twenty years ago last Thursday Ethel and my father-in-law Syd made a wedding for Shauna and me that was decidedly the best one I’ve ever attended. Of course I am biased. It was a big wedding, held at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, and many friends and family from both sides were in attendance. While much of the ceremony was a blur, I do remember Shauna looking like a white cloud floating down that aisle, and I remember the great band Shauna picked (she has great taste in music) for the reception. It was Guido Basso and his big band and boy, did they rock the house. The music, the food, the speeches were all fantastic and the night could not have been a better celebration. One of the best parts about our wedding was that friends and family came from across North America to share it with us. Syd and Ethel made that beautiful wedding for us, and I think it is fitting that the only one remaining parent between Shauna and me should be with us to acknowledge its 20^th anniversary. Too many of the attendees of that wedding are now gone.

We drove down to Bracebridge and had quiet dinner at a restaurant Shauna and I like, overlooking the Muskoka River. We were served dinner by someone whom I do not think had ever waitressed before, but had a lovely meal nonetheless. We took the obligatory selfie outside the restaurant with Shauna’s mom, then headed back up to Katrine. It was hardly the grandiose celebration of the original event, but an appropriate one nonetheless. No marriage is perfect, and Shauna and I have sometimes stumbled over the years. Relationships are hard, and anyone who tells you what is the “right thing to do” to keep a marriage on track had better have been married for thirty or forty years before they call themselves and expert. I am sure there will be other bumps in the road, but what I have slowly come to realize is that this woman is in many ways my foundation. She has seen me at my best and at my worst. We have spent most of the last 20 years in each other’s company, and we have shared a lot of our life so far. She knows me as well if not better than I know myself and certainly better than anyone else in my life knows me. She accepts who I am (although grudgingly when it comes to my chronic messiness) and she loves me, even when I fail. For all those things I love her. She has been my muse these past twenty years, and I doubt I would have proposed marriage in a song to any other woman.

A few weeks ago I walked in to a jewelry store in Hunstville and ordered a custom designed necklace with a pendant which will be meaningful to Shauna. It will be made out of platinum, and it will be my 20^th anniversary gift to her. The pendant will be engraved on the back, but I’m not yet sure what I will say; perhaps something like “Happy 20^th to my Shauna Leigh, and here’s to however many more years we have left together.”

 

A YEAR AGO I DIDN’T KNOW, DIDN’T HAVE A CLUE WHO I WAS WAITING FOR

PASSING TIME IMPERFECT RHYMES, DIDN’T HAVE A CLUE WHO I WAS WRITING FOR/

 

cho: AND I’M TELLING YOU I LOVE YOU, AND I’M ASKING YOU TO PLEASE CONSIDER ME.

     OH PLEASE PLEASE SHAUNA LEIGH WILL YOU MARRY ME?

 

THAT FIRST NIGHT ON THE TELEPHONE, SITTING IN MY BEACH HOUSE ALL ALONE

I LISTENED TO YOUR DISTANT VOICE, AND SOMEHOW I JUST KNEW THAT YOU WOULD BE THE ONE

 

cho: AND I’VE WAITED OH SO VERY LONG, BUT I FINALLY FOUND THE RIGHT WORDS IN A SONG, OH PLEASE PLEASE SHAUNA LEIGH  WILL YOU MARRY ME?

 

I CAN’T TELL YOU WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS, BUT TOGETHER WE’LL EXPLORE THAT OPEN ROAD, SO I’M HOPING YOU’LL SAY “YES” SHAUNA LEIGH …. WILL YOU MARRY ME?

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED