Marriage Made In Heaven

 

Claudia and I were married for eleven and a half years before she passed away. We were actually married 4 times in the space of two weeks. I know that sounds a little strange, so let me explain.

We were dating for 3 weeks and were eating at a wonderfully romantic restaurant (Wendy's) when Cupid struck with his magical arrow. To this day I believe that my wife cast some kind of spell over me, and I was in love. Not just a little bit in love, but absolute conviction that this was the woman that I was going to spend the rest of eternity with. I looked at Claudia, took a deep breath, and asked her if she would like to get married.

Now I know that took guts; actually, it was very brazen of me. We had only been dating for three weeks, after all. However, I knew what I knew - this was the woman I loved and there was to be no one else for me.

What I didn't know was a minister was sitting behind us. His name was Earl, a very friendly man. He liked me and it seemed he had overheard our conversation. Thus, he was grinning from ear to ear when Claudia, much to my surprise, turned around and asked him if he would like to marry the two of us.

He asked her when she would like to be married. Claudia turned to me and looked at me as if to say, well, put up or shut up! I am not one to back out, although I was already wondering what kind of girl I was proposing to. So I took another deep breath, slurped on my Diet Coke, and said, "why not right now?"

Claudia smiled, turned to Earl, and said, "you doing anything later tonight?" Earl said he was, but he would be happy to change those plans for two lovebirds like us.

It took a little work on my part, but we managed to get together a few friends, the minister and some space at the church. This was when I made the mistake of letting my best friend in on the great news.

He was not very happy with my decision. We had been friends for about a year, and had shared many interesting experiences. He listened to me as I told him what I was doing, tried to talk me out of it, then said he would be up to the church later that day.

At this time I was formally introduced to Claudia's fourteen year old son, Alvaro. He was a handsome young man, full of pride. He looked me over suspiciously as we shook hands, then looked Claudia in the eye and said, "Mom, do you love this man?" Claudia said yes, she did. Alvaro replied that in that case, the marriage was fine with him. At that moment, he greatly impressed me as a very forthright and astute young man.

Shortly after this, I became aware that things were not going as planned. People suddenly started finding other things to do. Some of my friends who previously said they could attend mysteriously found something more important on their agenda. What I didn't know at the time was that my best friend was frantically calling everyone he could think of to try and throw a monkey wrench into our plans.

A couple of hours later (I think it was around 5 pm), he showed up with another friend - a woman. Now, this lady has never been shy, and partially because of her tendency to speak exactly what was on her mind we had become very good friends. I didn't know she was coming, but was pleased to see her get out of the car with my friend.

That pleasure lasted for about a second. The first words out of her mouth were "Guy tells me you are being a stupid $&#@*&$#!". I was shocked, and sat there stunned for the next hour while she screamed at me at the top of her voice in the middle of the church. Literally, she screamed that I was being so incredibly stupid ... well, you get the idea.

Everyone scattered after that and the marriage didn't happen. However, on July 23rd, 1993, Claudia and I walked away from the church, heartbroken. I took her in my arms and at that moment we declared ourselves married. This is the day we celebrate as our wedding anniversary.

A few days later my best friend calmed down. We talked and I decided to let him live. In fact, we went to the jewelry store together and he helped me pick out a ring for my love. Once he became involved in the process he decided to bless the proceedings and graciously allowed us to get married.

The lady friend, on the other hand, didn't talk to me again for over six years until she bumped into my wife. They instantly became good friends, and she finally called me up to tell me I had made the right decision.

Anyway, we pulled together a beautiful ceremony on July 27th with most of our best friends. We said our vows and had a glorious two day honeymoon. 

Unfortunately, we had never done this before and did it all in such a hurry that we didn't know about this little thing called a marriage license. So we had to go pick one up and get married again a few days later. This was just a small ceremony with us and the minister.

To make this even more hilarious, the minister lost the license, so we had to go get another one, and got married for the final time. This was our forth marriage (so to speak) and so when it was done my new wife looked at me and said, "four times is enough ... I'm not marrying you again!" We both laughed at that one.

Needless to say, marrying this woman was the best thing that I ever did. How on Earth I managed to find her, and how I had the good sense to recognize such a wonderful being, is a mystery. We were married for eleven and a half years, and she was my best friend, my companion and my wife. I'll miss her for the rest of my life.