The Secret of Happiness

In Reader’s Digest, October 2004, actress Catherine Zeta-Jones says, “For marriage to be a success, every woman and every man should have her and his own bathroom. The end.”

Ten years ago, when two good friends of mine–both widowed and family friends for ages–decided to marry, they agreed to keep both their houses. Ann Marie says, “Rick’s house is too small for all my stuff.” Rick says, “It’s just about large enough for her clothes.” She smiles, “Besides, it’s on the golf course and he loves to golf.”

Rick says, “After breakfast, she leaves and goes to her house. She works around there, in and out all day, and then we get back together at night.” Ann Marie says, “I have friends whose husbands have retired and they’re underfoot all day. This is so much better.”

Besides, I suggested, you each have grown children and they have families, so this gives you more room to have them over.

I told them about two other friends, Winfield and Barbara, both widowed. I’m going to hazard a guess about their ages when they married, again about a decade ago. He was perhaps 70 and she was 55. I’m just guessing, Barbara. (She reads this.)

Winfield owned a house in Nashville and Barbara had a home in Cumming, Georgia. They kept their houses and lived in both of them, a few days or a couple of weeks here, then there.

I gave them the famous Tallulah Bankhead quote. Asked if she thought separate beds were necessary for a happy marriage, she answered in that husky Hollywood voice, “Separate beds nothing! Separate towns.”


On the other hand, Carl and Lois were married on March 3, 1934, and shared the same small bed into the 21st century. In the past few years, they each have developed health problems, so Lois moved into one of the spare bedrooms–the one I slept in as a teenager–and that continues to be their arrangement.

In the hospital in Columbus, Mississippi, where I had gone to visit Rick and Ann Marie after his health scare, I told them about my parents. “She’s about to be 91 and he was 95 in April.” She said, “And how is their health?” Everyone asks that. At that age, one’s life is all about your health, it seems.

I said, “Not good. But consider this: they still live in their own home, in the house Dad built 53 years ago, just across the hill from where Mom was born. My sister Patricia lives across the road and fixes a big lunch every day for them and anyone in the area who drops by. Mom still cooks breakfast and the home health nurse comes by regularly. My sister Carolyn drives up from Jasper several times a week, bringing the groceries. And my brother Ronnie manages their money.”

Ann Marie said the same thing I feel. “My, my–how blessed you all are.”

I spent the last two-plus days with Mom and Dad. She had been planning on my visit, even though we’d not said when it would be. “She over-plans,” Carolyn says, “so just make sure we know when you’re coming, but let’s not worry Mom.” Mom had, however, prepared a dozen small fried pies for me to take home. “Some are cherry and some apple,” she said. “Sorry there are no blueberries.”

She spent the entire time in the kitchen. Even though I washed dishes and swept and mopped the floor, Mom still found things to do there. I thought back on those early years in the 1940s when life was hard, money was scarce, and the babies just kept a-coming (I’m number five, so no complaint here!), at how she was always working. We didn’t have much, but we were clean and the house was neat and the meals were hot. On Saturday nights, she got us all ready and Sunday mornings we walked the mile to church. Like a mother goose followed by her babies, all in a row.

Pop lives in pain these days. “You try to get your mind off it,” he said, handing me the latest issue of Time magazine. “Read that.”

While I scanned the articles he had circled, I noticed him perusing the Fortune magazine that had arrived that morning. Earlier in the day, he handed me the Jasper daily paper with two articles about New Orleans and wanted to talk about them. I found myself wondering how many 95-year-olds there are who read all the time.

Monday night while we were watching the Braves-Dodgers game on television, he pitched a book in my direction. “This has some good stuff in it.” A former high school coach and principal had written a book of messages he shares with young people and church groups, and someone sent Dad a copy. I could not help but notice all through the entire book, he had written little notes in the margin. At the end of one chapter, “Amen,” at the start of another, “Good.”

He kept up with the meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in San Antonio recently. “What about these splinter groups that were meeting?” he asked. I tried to explain about Baptists. Dad and Mom are Free Will Baptists and we’re a lot alike but vastly different.

Monday afternoon, Carolyn’s pastor, Anthony Gilbreath, from Jasper’s Zion United Methodist Church, came by with his wife Beth and daughter Abby. Last week, Mom and Dad’s pastor, Mickey Crane, dropped by for an hour.

The laughter and arguing and loud talking that stirs up the household are Patricia’s grandchildren coming by. Madison, Kaylie, and Payton liven up the show, make themselves at home, and find all the snacks.

The lunch which Patricia and Mom spread on the table–almost all of which came from her garden–included corn and peas, okra and squash, slaw and canteloupe, tomatoes and yams, green beans and a huge container of dressing. Dessert was a blackberry cobbler, strawberry shortcake, and Mom’s fried pies.

My own conclusion is that happiness in life and in marriage has very little to do with how many rooms and how much privacy you have. It’s all about the people, the relationships, about staying active, staying interested.

Dad is given to reminiscing. “I didn’t know how to build a house. I’d never built one before. But when our house burned in February of ’54, the county sent out a road machine and they scraped everything off the hillside. Then they sent out loads of red rock so we wouldn’t be building on the ashes. I got out my string and laid off the dimensions for the new house.” Extended family members and neighbors helped build this house. Like Mom and Dad, it’s solid–built for the ages.

I started to say, “I was there, Pop. I remember.” As a 13-year-old, I experienced every heart-breaking detail of the house fire at a time when we already thought we were as low as a family could be, and I helped drive nails in this house and staple in the ceiling tiles.

It’s humble by modern standards, but it was plenty sufficient to raise their brood and everything that Mom and Dad want and need in a house today. “We don’t want for a thing,” he said to me. “We’ve been so blessed.”

3 thoughts on “The Secret of Happiness

  1. How fortunate you are to still have your beloved Mom and Dad!! May our loving Lord keep them close to Himself in the days to come. Those Fried Pies sound delicious. ENJOY!!

  2. Enjoy the articles each time you send them. Glad you under guessed the ages of Winfield and Barbara. Why we must be young chickens, at least at heart.

    Thanks for being our very good friend.

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