A Late Announcement

Allyson, a daughter of Sharon of Kansas City, and the now late William, was married ten years ago today to Jack, a son of Dave and Mary of Lincoln, Nebraska. Reverend Patrick Sean Liam Flannagan, a Roman Catholic priest with an over the top Irish name, performed the St. Patrick's day nuptials at St. Clement Catholic Church in Chicago. The bride, who is known as Ally, is also the stepdaughter of Jackie and the also late Jack. The bride does not have great luck with regard to keeping wonderful fathers living.

Allyson, who will stick with the name she has been using for too long to consider changing, was, until ten years ago, a trust officer with UMB Bank in Kansas City, responsible for taking care of truly lovely old people who entrusted their financial concerns to a woman who had difficulty passing Algebra 101. The groom, who was also, and still is, a banker, is far more skilled in mathematical logic and will, forever, be responsible for balancing the family checkbook.

The bride's father worked in the soft drink industry, specializing in packaging products, at a company bearing his family name. Years of store deliveries to the bride's childhood home required Ms. Ally to kick a very long standing addiction to Tab when the soda became difficult to find on store shelves. The groom is still happily attached to his daily Coca Cola but finds that he prefers the version produced in Mexico, available at Hispanic markets all over Chicago. The bride now abstains from all soft drinks, as do their children. The bride's mother has retired from a life of random volunteer work and car pooling, and now spends her days inside collecting Ironstone, newspapers and soy sauce.

The groom's father is a meat inspector with the USDA, supervising a pork production plant in Nebraska. That his son chose to marry a woman who does not eat meat has proved to be very difficult. Convinced that she has just not yet had a good steak he has offered repeatedly to sign up the bride for the Omaha Steaks Meat of the Month Club. The bride is horrified but has graciously declined this kind offer. The groom's mother is a nurse who is thankful she no longer has to beg for grandchildren.

The couple met in June of 1996, at work, where Ms. Ally initially thought that Mr. Jack looked like a secret service agent who appeared to be far too stiff and boring to ever go for ice cream after work. That she does not actually like ice cream was not considered relevant. The groom immediately found the bride to be witting and charming, with dazzling blue eyes, cascading chestnut hair and a keen sense of style. They first had lunch together on the way to visit a mutual client. The groom ordered a very messy sandwich; his great concern about spilling on his suit did little to dispel the earlier notion that he was stuffy. When he appeared a few weeks later in the bride's next door office, long after the bank closed, to regale her with tales of a last minute post happy hour trip to New Orleans she realized that he might not be as dull as once she thought.

The couple, both avid baseball fans, went on their first outing, not called a date, to watch the Kansas City Royals host the Chicago Cubs. "I knew then that I wanted to marry someone just like Jack" Ms. Ally said, "but I had no idea that I would actually end up marrying him". The groom remembers that day as the hottest he has ever been in his entire life and spent several innings completely focused on the child directly in front of them, wondering if he was going to puke the chocolate malt he had just inhaled in the 95 degree heat. This was before the groom became painfully aware of his future wife's all compelling fear of vomit. "It was miserable, horribly hot, and she insisted on driving in her new Jeep. There was no top and no air conditioning, it was painful. I did enjoy the game though, Royals won", said Mr. Jack.

To the surprise of many the couple actually married and have stayed happily in that fashion for ten years. The groom, it turns out, does like ice cream and enjoys going out for a scoop or two of Chocolate Malt Supreme on any given day. The bride still does not like ice cream, but is always happy to go along.

I Want You, I Need You

Junior Achievement put me back into an elementary school classroom for one morning a week in the banking years. JA is a wonderful program that partners with the business community, stocking local schools with volunteers, offering real world business experience to every grade level. For several years I headed east, into the more challenging schools, to spend my morning with witty children, some eager to learn and some eager to take a break from their usual morning routine. I'm certain I was supposed to come away from this experience with a renewed purpose, a profound sense of my role in the community and a illuminated view of life in an inner city school. Right, got that, but so much more, a respect for very silly children in days when I just didn't spend enough time with anyone under the age of 20.

Generally I opted for the first and second grade, programming geared towards neighborhoods and families. One day the curriculum had us discussing home and what that meant to the children. With a stern head jerk I was reprimanded by the teacher, not all these children live in a traditional home, some live with their grandparents, some with foster parents and some in shelters. She was new, JA and I were prepared, we'd done this before. What followed was a really beautiful discussion about what makes a home, and not one child required a yard or a plasma television or granite counter tops. Although one little boy hoped that one day his mom could get a car so he could stop taking the bus everywhere, it was cold and being a bus rider myself, I sympathized.

In another class we did a project differentiating between needs and wants. "Who can give me an example of a need?", shoes and housing, yes, microwave popcorn, no. "And now a want, what is something we want?", the list was long, and funny, and then Michael, from the back of the room shouted "A husband, she wants a husband!". Uproarious laughter amongst the seven year old crowd, a smirky smile from me, "No, she NEEDS a husband", this time from the front of the class, and a girl no less. Clarification on my part, you are correct, I am not married but I do not want or need a husband, thank you. "Now, something I do want, a vacation", and again from Michael, "she means a honeymoon!", and with that I lost complete control, probably because I was now laughing as hard as they were.

When I got back to the office I stopped in to visit with a co-worker, someone who also volunteered with JA, knowing he would find this scenario hilarious, and he did. And then two years later I married him, and we went on a honeymoon, and while I didn't really need him, I did find that life was more pleasant when he was around, just as a want should be.

What A Difference A Day Makes

For years a beautiful poinsettia plant appeared at my home on the day after Thanksgiving, a gift from my wonderful former step father. He was only married to my mother for a few years, but he was committed to a relationship with both my sister and me far beyond what he had lived with our mother. And we adored him, in all his gruff bravado but kind interior, he remembered every birthday, something my mother had never done, and made every effort to include us in his life beyond the Sharon years. At my father's memorial he told me that when he died he wanted something very similar to what we did for Dad, a celebration. I brushed him off, said of course but there were no plans to be made quite yet. Nine months later my stepfather died, unexpectedly really, and there we were again, at a celebration.

And that year, on the day after Thanksgiving, no poinsettia plant arrived at my door.

One day, many years ago, I walked into my office at The Bank and was surprised to find that my light had not been turned on. It didn't register immediately, I stopped, sensed something was different, backed up and then flipped on the light, realizing, quite suddenly, that I didn't remember a day when I had actually turned the light on myself. Around lunchtime it hit me. The day before the branch security guard had a heart attack while opening the drive through, one of the tellers found him. I had been at a meeting downtown and didn't make it back to my office until well into the afternoon. Carl was a wonderful person, a person who actually took a real interest in the well being of those who worked with him, those whose safety was his responsibility. He often chided me for staying late, worrying that I was vulnerable in that bank all alone at night (I was). He wandered the branch during the day, eyes darting around looking for anything unusual, moving towards the teller window or personal banker desks when he detected unrest. Carl appeared right outside my door whenever an angry customer found his way to my office.

And Carl had been turning my light on for five years, every day, and I never once noticed.

Every year at Christmas my kind husband sends me, and my sister, a beautiful poinsettia, having witnessed my break down the year it failed to appear. A nice reminder now of two people very dear to me, my stepfather and my husband. And Carl, who always left the light on.