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PrintLove, Laughter, and Providence
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Never a Dull Moment
Perry and Sherry Barinowski
On the eve of their four-month anniversary, Perry Barinowski shifted and fidgeted in his chair. For a normally talkative, boisterous guy, he didn’t say much. Sherry couldn’t get him going in their usual exchange of quirky, quippy dialogue that had become the language of their new relationship. Looking at him across the table at La Maison, Sherry decided that this was probably it. He had taken her out somewhere nice to let her down easy.
Meeting Perry, it’s understandable why she expected the worst. He describes himself as having an over-developed sense of humor. In an instant, he has their pantry doors open, showing off a display of pictures taped to the inside. In every one he and Sherry are wearing Dr. Bukk prosthetic teeth and striking hilarious poses. He laughingly says that one of his top criteria for a wife was that her name rhyme with his. If only Sherry had known this tidbit the eve of their four-month anniversary she might not have been so worried.
As she anxiously awaited the it’s-me-not-you-we-can-still-be-friends talk, Perry suggested that, after dinner, they drive over to Rosemary Hall in North Augusta to take a look at the place. When she agreed, she never expected him to pop out of the car and run up and knock. Reluctantly she joined him on the porch and, the time having passed 9 p.m., she tried to dissuade Perry from calling someone to the door.
No stranger to pranks, Sherry once brought Perry in on her conspiracy to plant plastic flowers around a friend’s manicured mailbox. After guests arrived at the friend’s house for a party, the two stealthily set to work on the landscape embellishments, having everything arranged by the time all the guests drove out right past the beautiful new plastic garden. Even while reveling in the mischief of the adventure, both quickly add that a prank is only fun if everyone involved, on both sides, thinks it’s funny.
Sherry wasn’t convinced the caretaker of Rosemary Hall would find Perry’s harebrained idea amusing. While she pulled on Perry’s sleeve to bring him to his senses, he insisted that they would just take a quick tour for a little fun. The door swung open and a gentleman host warmly welcomed them. What could Sherry do now but enter? She cringed as Perry requested a tour, yet she had no choice but to follow, hoping they didn’t awaken any guests in their after-hours foray. This entire escapade seemed so inappropriate, but she was caught in a current of one bad decision after another.
When their guide finally led them back toward the front door, escape from the uncomfortable drew closer. Or so Sherry thought a moment before she and Perry were ushered into the parlor and the pocket doors closed behind them. Perry shrugged, as if in acceptance of the circumstances, and escorted Sherry to the sofa. He nonchalantly took a seat at the piano and began to loudly play “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You.” Naturally, Sherry ruminated on how very sweet and romantic and particularly awkward the situation felt. She pictured guests trying to sleep while Perry banged out love songs on the piano and she felt a twinge guilty for enjoying it.
Their 17-year marriage seems to be staked out around this odd sense of balance. She likes to water ski; he likes to drive a boat. He sees big pictures; she pictures the details. She’s neat and tidy; he’s a little on the messy side. He’s the footloose and fancy free Marlboro man (without the cigarettes or the horse), riding the range; she’s the consummate servant, always doing for others. She complements him; he compliments her. He says she has more to put up with than he does. She offers no rebuttal.
Giving the piano keys, and very likely, Sherry thought, the bed and breakfast guests, some relief, Perry joined her on the sofa. He pointed to a bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries and a dozen red roses on a side table, suggesting they indulge. Sherry voiced objections, imagining their host returning any minute to catch them consuming someone else’s romantic evening. Grabbing a small rectangular card from the bouquet, Perry casually glanced at it and tossed it aside, informing a disbelieving Sherry that the roses were for her.
The next thing Sherry knew, she was clutching a glass of champagne and Perry was on one knee digging in his sock. He produced a ring and a marriage proposal. Everything was immediately both clear and fuzzy as she heard herself saying, “Yes, yes, yes.”
Thinking back to Perry fidgeting with that ring in his sock all through their La Maison dinner gets the pair giggling. Humor is their device, the plane on which they connect. But Perry becomes unexpectedly serious for a moment, saying, “Love starts a marriage, but commitment makes it.”
Not more than three seconds later, demonstrating that odd sense of balance they share, he’s joking that the other key to their longevity is that Sherry voluntarily stays. He likes that about her. She teases that Perry’s dad frequently thanks her for it. This quirky, quippy banter is the language of their marriage
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Perfect Arrangement
Catherine and Manny Ngoh
Theirs is an arranged marriage. It has worked out very well for them. So well, in fact, that Manny and Catherine Ngoh hope the marriages of their three sons, Aknowi, Tuma and Neba, ages 17, 12 and 8, respectively, will be arranged too.
An arranged marriage involves the interlacing of two lives to form a foundation for future marital success. It involves placing two people before each other, allowing them to take a good long look before emotions cloud the picture. An arranged marriage is the result of weaving together two souls none the wiser of the intention for them to be twined and knotted for all time. It is very hard to pin down the exact moment when the arrangement of Manny and Catherine’s marriage was a done deal. They are unable to say if it was set in stone when God’s fingertips first touched the darkness of the universe or if it was solidified while the two were in the womb or if it congealed during their shared days of youth in Cameroon, Africa.
Growing up in Cameroon, Manny frequently visited Catherine’s family home. He was childhood friends with her brother. No indication of a possible romance aired back then, however. No furtive glances, no flirtations, no fancies passed between them. Yet as the years replaced the little boy and the little girl with a young man and a young woman, Manny developed an attraction to Catherine.
For the preservation of his valued friendship with Catherine’s brother and out of deep respect for his friend’s family, Manny never considered initiating a relationship. Amongst boys, there is an unwritten rule that one does not date his friend’s sister. Then, as now, Manny was honorable in his actions, carefully disguising any feelings he felt for Catherine.
Interestingly, Catherine, while not amorously interested in Manny at the time, recalls a vivid memory from around the age of 12 or 13. Like young girls do, Catherine mused over what her future might be like. On one such occasion, Manny stood in her mind’s eye as the model of a perfect husband. The attention span of teenage girls is short, though. She just as quickly dismissed the fleeting image and indulged in other contemplations.
Eventually, Manny left Cameroon for an education in the United States, taking thoughts of Catherine with him. In 1990, after four years away at school, anticipating a two-month return to his home, Manny drew up the courage to ask Catherine’s brother for permission to see Catherine, not as his friend’s sister, but as a woman.
Manny arrived at Catherine’s doorstep without a gift, without flowers, without fanfare. He did not boast of his studies abroad or of entering dental school. Unlike other men, he refused to try to impress her. He placed his confidence in the idea that there’s no need for these antics when the marriage is arranged. And Manny went to all lengths to ensure that, if the chords of their hearts were to be knit together, it was God’s will, not his own.
Meanwhile, in the years after Manny’s departure, Catherine focused her prayers on asking God to send her an honorable man, a good man, a man who would treat her well. After all, in an arranged marriage, a woman can never be sure of the kind of person selected especially for her. When Manny showed up at her door, she saw it as a sign from God that he was answering her prayers. “I said, ‘Lord, thank you,’” she recalls.
The spark was lit and a fire was burning and Manny, who returned to the States, racked up monthly phone bills higher than his rent. When at last he went back to Cameroon for a second time in 1993, the two were married. The long-distance love affair did not end, however. Not until 1996 was Catherine able to get a U.S. visa and join Manny.
Manny humbly says that he’s not an easy person to live with. Catherine is the only lady, he believes, who could. Catherine smiles. She’s thankful for the trying years when their marriage spanned an ocean. She’s glad for the years they’ve enjoyed together. She adores Manny. She keeps him looking forward to coming home to his family at the end of every day.
Sure, there were ways they could have skirted the system and brought Catherine here sooner. Certainly, they fielded the doubts of others as to whether their bond was sincere. Indeed, there were times when the circumstances of their marriage pulled at the strings of harmony. Still, neither Manny nor Catherine faltered in his or her convictions. Their Christian upbringing, their faith and their understanding that God always works for good in their lives made them strong, inspired them to persevere.
What else could they do? Theirs is an arranged marriage. But this marriage is based on respect, love, faith and charitable hearts. “If you pull God out of my life, out of my story, then there is no story,” says Manny. And if you pull God out of their marriage, then there is no arrangement. This marriage was arranged, yes, but not by human hands. It was arranged by God. They both fervently agree on this fact.
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Love at First Sighting
Susan and Rich Everitt
The Girl in the Blue Dress. Rich Everitt thought about her for years after their encounter, not knowing her by a more official or more personal title. It’s a stretch he would agree to even call it an encounter. It was more like a sighting.
He just happened to be in the right place at the right time. As part of the press corps covering Desmond Tutu’s visit to the University of the South, he and his cameraman collected in their designated place at All Saints Chapel. Rich had his videographer panning the crowd, directing him to the pretty women, which is how his gaze fell upon the unforgettable Girl in the Blue Dress.
But this isn’t a story about what could have been. This is a story about Rich and Susan Everitt. And Susan is the woman who briefly came between Rich and the vision of the woman in blue. But while he says unequivocally, “It was love at first,” she says she really didn’t like him when they first met. Eleven years her senior, and the evening news anchor at the Chattanooga television station where Susan worked after arriving from Sewanee, Rich was quite accustomed to getting his way.
In her case, Susan didn’t make things so easy for him. Nonetheless, Rich asked her out and she did initially accept. Rich just shakes his head as Susan shares. He still can’t believe she stood him up and he’s still amazed at the way she did it, leaving a note perched on his typewriter at the station. Susan scrawled something about an unexpected visit from friends, but what Rich read was, “I don’t want to go out with you.”
It wasn’t that Susan didn’t think she could measure up to the Girl in the Blue Dress. She wasn’t even aware of her. Very simply, Susan knew in her gut and in her heart that if she went on that date she would never turn back. Staring face-to-face with the rest of her life at the tender age of 22, she didn’t know if she was ready for it. In a panic, she dear-Johned Rich.
Obviously, Rich, in keeping with his reputation, ultimately got his way. There was a second first date. On that date, Susan successfully passed the test of accurately explaining the in-field fly rule setting the wheels toward the wedding in motion. Just as Susan suspected, within a couple of months Rich proposed a “theoretical” question of marriage to which Susan said a “theoretical” yes. With that in pocket they continued to date for several years, getting married in September of 1993. But there’s nothing theoretical about how they feel about each other.
Even now, 21 years since they met, Rich’s heart still leaps when he hears Susan’s key in the front door in the afternoons. He finds her “infinitely fascinating.” She could have no more enthusiastic champion and she firmly believes he has made her a better person than she would have been on her own. To paint a clear picture, Rich says, “She greases the skids of my life.” Looking at them looking at each other, it appears that the greasing, the championing, the heart leaping are mutual.
But no one could call them connected at the hip. Although he can be spotted at the ballet with her and she goes to GreenJackets game with him, they maintain separate identities as well. He hangs with his guy friends. She looks forward to regular girls’ nights out. “You have to have separate interests to stay interesting,” says Susan, with Rich nodding in agreement. His grandfather gave him similar advice, to go in different directions if he wanted to stay married 60 years. Rich and Susan are on target, with only 43 to go.
For 43 more years, hopefully more, Susan will clean up the drips of Rich’s spilled morning coffee from the kitchen counter—something she has done for the past 17, every afternoon, without fail. Sometimes the monotony and predictability of it irritates Susan. Yet, those cloudy, sticky dribbles are evidence of stability and constancy, of the comforting presence of the person she loves most in world.
Asked again about the Girl in the Blue Dress, Rich smiles. The memory of her is still vivid. He says the Girl in the Blue Dress turned out to be everything he imagined at that first sighting. She said yes to his “theoretical” and later his actual marriage proposal. On September 25, 1993, he married her in All Saints Chapel at the University of the South. And his heart still leaps when he hears her key in the lock.
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Divine Intervention
Cissy and Joe Bowden
Everything comes down to a church pew. Call it fate. Call it divine intervention. Call it destiny. Whatever you call it, a church pew is where two lives converged at a turning point.
To an ordinary observer, it’s just a regular wooden pew, exactly like all the others at the Church of the Good Shepherd. Every Sunday for years, Cissy Murphy sat in the end seat in the front row at the nine o’clock service; every Sunday for years Joe Bowden sat in the end seat in the front row at the 11:15 service. This is how divine intervention works, massaging happenstance into happily ever after with its targets none the wiser.
In September of 1990, at Good Shepherd’s inaugural morning prayer service, Joe sat in his (ownership emphasized) usual place waiting for the service to begin. Cissy, running a touch later than Joe, hurried down the aisle. Surprised to see someone in her spot, she politely, but firmly, explained to Joe that he happened to be in her (ownership emphasized) seat and could he please find another.
Joe didn’t hold it against her. Thus began a friendship anchored in side-by-side daily worship. By December, the two had developed genuine affection for one another. Still, when Joe asked her to accompany him to a music concert, Cissy wasn’t sure if the invitation was an official date or merely a request for sociable companionship. On December 10, Joe picked her up, presenting her with flowers at the front door. All of her questions were answered.
By another incredible twist of fate, plans for the music performance Joe suggested fell through. Instead, Joe accompanied Cissy to her daughter’s high school choral concert. At the time he probably had no idea that this singular act of interest in Cissy’s personal world—in her daughter Angela—placed them firmly on the path that began with the pew. Cissy declared him a “nice guy.” It was a good date confides Cissy, quietly, a smile teasing at the corners of her mouth. Joe rears back and jovially roars, “It was a great date.”
Cissy and Joe ebb and flow easily in and out of conversation as the memories come rolling back. Even though they’ve probably each heard the other tell these stories multiple times, there is a generosity of silence. Neither interrupts the other. Working out the facts of the details tends to be more of a cooperative effort than a corrective rigmarole. Respect for the spirit of the other is evident. Just as in the rhythm of prayer, their relationship expresses constancy. Natural laughter at themselves, at their situations, erupts and trickles and seeps into the spaces between their words. Their utter comfort with one another whispers of a collusion between the mundane and the divine.
Joe asked Cissy to marry him while she was up to her elbows in dishwater with tears streaming down her face. A disagreement had disturbed what otherwise was a pleasant evening and Cissy had excused herself to the kitchen. Big voiced, gregarious Joe entered and said something like, “Well, if we’re going to fight like married people, why don’t we just go ahead and get married?” Quite a risky move to end an argument.
And it was a profitable gamble. On December 11, 1993, three years to the day of their 1 a.m. first date parting, Joe and Cissy celebrated their wedding at the Church of the Good Shepherd.
Like any marriage, it has weathered changes. Joe, a surgeon, retired from University Hospital—his second retirement (the first from MCG) and counting. He accepted a new position as chief of surgery at the VA Medical Center. In addition, he initiated and completed study and was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church, ultimately acquiring a parish of his own, the Holy Comforter, in Martinez, leaving Cissy unchallenged for the end seat on the first row at Good Shepherd.
None of these changes compare, however, to the loss of Cissy’s daughter, Angela, and son-in-law, Jim, in a car accident in 2003. The days and weeks following the funeral were difficult, dark times, but a steady Joe went with Cissy through her deepest grief and emerged with her in a different but settled place on the other side. She credits his persistent presence for providing her strength. She also credits their shared faith. Putting God, putting Jesus, at the center of their marriage has bolstered them through all of life’s challenges, big and small.
Cissy good-naturedly jokes that she thinks the only reason Joe married her is so that he could keep his pew at Good Shepherd. It all comes full circle back to that church pew, where two lives intersected at the same turning point and turned in the same direction. Call it fate. Call it destiny. Call it divine intervention. Whatever you call it, looking back on their years together, Joe believes in his heart it was the powers of what he terms the “great divide” that brought them together.
Reader Comments:
Great Article!
Great Article!