The Between Years

passed since the picnic and now, I can evaluate my old life with a clear mind. I was ready to be married. Sure I was. I wasn't some anxious, love-drunk little girl who had no idea what she was getting into. Hardly! I would say I was filled with all the joy and high hopes that brides are supposed to have. Randy and I had a dazzling future ahead of us, but what happens when that future is turned inside out and backwards?

    Let me restate that: I knew I had so much to look forward to, being married to Randy, and the beginning of our married lives were a wonderland, a dream come true. Yet sometimes I wonder what would have happened if we'd never had Kenny. Sounds awful, doesn't it? But life is comprised of decisions and events, and one event influences everything that follows it, for better or worse. So I can't examine the chronology of events associated with Kenny's conception, birth and death without at least considering it.

    Then again, had one or two other events turned out differently, or if I had reconsidered one bad decision before I'd made it, I could have restored my perfect life before disaster struck. Such small, seemingly inconsequential things can unravel a marriage, a life, and there's no erasing it. Such logic can drive a person mad, but when you've faced the trials that Randy and I have, you might feel differently. I know you will re-examine your own decisions after I describe the events as they happened.

CHAPTER 3
    Our first order of business was to find a house. Randy's parents helped us with a down payment-considered to be our wedding gift-and we toured countless homes, but were always left with a bland, empty feeling. Then finally, we found a charming bungalow in the Crescent Park section of Fort Erie, complete with a furnished basement, an attached garage, a rock garden, and we were sold. Being a St. Catharines girl, I wasn't yet ready to live in Fort Erie, but knowing it would be a special home for us, I was willing to make the compromise.

    The place hardly needed any work, which was swell but what the place lacked was furniture. The empty space we'd stared at left everything to the imagination, but we had no resources to fulfill our dream. Randy's mom had saved older and inherited furniture and stored it in the loft above her garage in case Randy could use it one day. Since I'd been a kid, I'd dreamed of living in a house with a name-you know, something like Chateau Paradise?-but I quickly understood that the people you're with make a home far more than bricks and mortar can. And so, I was happy to live in the house and in Fort Erie with Randy.

    I know not everyone was as ecstatic about the living arrangement as Randy and I were. For one thing, I thought my family would have a bird when they learned I'd be moving into the house with Randy before the actual wedding. Not that they were religious mind you, but they had a particular attitude towards co-habitation before one's nuptials. We could live together after we said “I do,” my dad said. But what was the problem? I mean, Randy had committed to me, had bought the ring, and made a down payment on a house. All that remained was the wedding itself. Why my parents, grandparents and even my kid brother had a bug up their butts about it, I'll never understand. Randy's family, on the other hand, was much more easygoing about our decision.

    After we assured them we wouldn't share sleeping quarters, my parents and brother backed off, but my grandparents were reluctant to let go. But they did, if only to avoid a pre-wedding blowout. If they wanted to be naive and believe that we wouldn't share sleeping quarters that was up to them.

    Randy's family threw a Stag and Doe for us, which offset much of our wedding cost. After living in the house with Randy, I realized all I wanted was to wake up next to him every morning, to come home to him each night, and that marriage would be an extension of the partnership we already cherished. I didn't need an extravagant wedding, and decided a simple, dignified affair would do.

    As for the wedding itself, Randy insisted on holding the ceremony at St. Paul's Anglican Church, which overshadows the Niagara River. It was a quaint, historical stone building, the kind that should have its own ghost in the bell tower, and was breathtaking for wedding photos, but I didn't want a church wedding. Aside from the cozy niceties I mentioned, the place seemed empty, hollow to me. But Randy is much more a traditionalist than I