My grandparents’ love story started where it could have ended. A missed connection. While it’s not uncommon for family legacies to include “meet cute” stories, this one has at least one unique twist and “no kidding?!” turn.

Somewhere around 1926, my grandmother was dating a dapper dude named Kent who was destined to claim her heart and hand. Or so they both thought.

One of the reasons she felt this hometown heartthrob was destined to be “the one” is that her aforementioned (literal) hand was distinguished by a vein in the shape of a “K.” Therefore, it seemed like kismet they had a future together because that’s another “K” word that means destiny.

Then came the pivotal moment in the plot that would change the entire narrative of her life story, if not the seemingly prophetic vein. 

My teenage grandmother attended a dance where she met my grandfather. He was new in town, she was shy, and there wasn’t an immediate spark. Oh, sure, he was a tall, charming, snappy dresser who could really cut a rug, but he was much older, an unknown, as it were, and he wasn’t Kent.

Though she initially rebuffed his expression of interest, she hadn’t realized fate attended the soirée with her. There was something undeniable at play, beginning with their names. Her name was Igerna and his name was Guerney. I kid you not.

(If you enjoy etymology, Igerna was King Arthur’s mother—old English Igraine—and Guerney goes back to William the Conqueror times. Yes, I’m done with that unrequested history lesson.)

While she remained dubious, he advanced to besotted, which is when another type of dance ensued. Courting.

That’s when things got real challenging for my grandfather, and not just in the love department either, but in the culinary resources department as well. 

You see, he was so sad the object of his affection wasn’t in a “requiting love” frame of mind that he couldn’t eat. Morning after morning his frugal, not-known-for-her-culinary-chops mother served and re-served the same two-egg breakfast that her son would consume–she was convinced–when he came to his senses.

Neither of those things happened.

He wasn’t having breakfast, nor was he having my grandmother’s rejection. He just needed a stronger wooing campaign. That’s when he came up with a plan that would feature his fancy footwork.  

He redoubled his efforts to convince his future lady love he was “the one” by cha-cha-cha-ing, jitterbugging, and foxtrotting his way into her heart by making sure he was her dance partner at every dance.

Being more of a “show” than a “tell” kind of guy anyway, this put him at a distinct advantage over poor ‘ole Kent who didn’t dance. Kent never stood a chance, but he did do a whole lot of standing on the sidelines as my grandparents twirled on by.

Igerna and Guerney were a natural fit as dance partners, becoming the featured couple at many a dance. Granted, there was a lot more dancing than talking, but that suited them both just fine. They moved together beautifully, gliding across the dance floor effortlessly, and they had fun together. Their love grew from there.

Because they danced in nightclubs—and restaurants that converted into nightclubs after hours—I only remember having one small peek at them tripping the light fantastic.

You know that feeling of being where you’re not supposed to be, but knowing you’re in the exact right place you’re supposed to be? It doesn’t happen often, but this was one of those times.

I’m maybe five years old, and I’m standing in front of a set of swinging doors. I’d heard music and wandered away from my mother to see where it was coming from. As I held the doors open, my grandparents glided by, ever so briefly, as I watched in awe. They were so tall, so glamorous, so happy. I craned my neck to see where they went, but that was it. Mere seconds that I’ve remembered for multiple decades. It was a brief glimpse at my grandparents in their element.

In taking the lead on the dance floor my grandfather, uncharacteristically, also took the lead in crafting their love story. Theirs would be a 50-year-plus authentic marriage that was a tango through time interspersed with marital quick steps testing their love and their bond.

Throughout it all, dance remained the cornerstone of their marriage, allowing them to speak in a language they both understood. Before we were all talking about what our love languages are they already knew what that meant. She needed words and him, not so much. That would lead them into a different kind of spin, but they would turn it into a dance that gave them a way to turn it all around.

 Isn’t that what a marriage—what a relationship, what a partnership—based on unconditional love truly is? Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow, but most of the time you intuitively move together with synchronized choreography that only the two of you can do. Together. 

…an unusual love story.  

Referencing animals in the title sets an expectation I’ll be telling you a fable, and I suppose that’s a fair description. After all, this story possesses both a lesson – actually, three of them – and the requisite animals, albeit two plaster animals.

My grandparents had an unusual love story. (Isn’t that true of all grandparents?) I knew they met – and fell in love – because of their shared passion for ballroom dancing.

But, boy, oh, boy, were they ever the couple most likely to never get – or stay – together just by virtue of the “lacking things in common” department. Though they were evenly matched looks-wise – he with his dashing hat, manner, and astonishingly clear blue eyes – she with her fashionably flowing dresses, ready smile, and big brown, laughing eyes, they were not so much a “swipe right on Tinder” kind of couple.

In fact, I’m convinced the guy who conducted the 1950’s study on mate selection came up with “opposites attract” after meeting my grandparents. Here’s the short list of their non-overlap on the ‘ole Venn diagram:

1. He was a man of 10 words or less, while she was a woman who delighted in upbeat, back and forth conversations of 10 minutes or more.
2. He didn’t care for yards, yardwork, or words that had “yard” in them, although he would sit in the yard listening to a ballgame. My Grammie was all about the yard, rendering that exquisite tiny plot of land gorgeous with flowers, a koi pond, and well-placed vintage lawn furniture that wasn’t vintage at the time.
3. He enjoyed a brisk business-like game of Blackjack, while she was devoted to her bridge clubs, enjoying all the social niceties they provided.
4. When he got mad he was a communications camel who could go for weeks without uttering a single word, fully committing to his “strong silent type” persona. She was gregarious, easy-going, and never met a positive word that shouldn’t be uttered. When she got mad she would just sputter out, “Oh, wouldn’t that just frost you?” and go her truly merry way.

The funny thing is you meet your grandparents – if you’re lucky to meet them at all – in the twilight years of their life together. That means the lens through which we view their relationship may seem clear at the time, but it’s not 20/20. That was certainly the case with my own Grammie and Daddy.

Their journey as a couple unfolded, not in real time, but along the timeline that was my own emotional development, providing me with the ability to appreciate what it means to be in a long-term loving relationship. Granted, it can feel heavy on the “long-term,” and not so much on the “loving” at times. 

There were rough patches. Plenty. The grandparents I met later in life had survived wars, a head-on car crash when neither was expected to live, and the tough road a marriage travels when alcoholism is one of the not-so-restful-stops.

I didn’t see much in the way of romance, except for one thing they did, but it spoke volumes. Their adorable and quirky expression of love that was re-ordering the cat and squirrel “live action” statues on their backyard pole.

The cat and the squirrel were two plaster figurines my grandmother artfully arranged on the post behind their modest house. She would position these unlikely-to-be-paired-up critters, so the cat was chasing the squirrel.

For years, every so often – she never knew exactly when he would do it – my grandfather would switch the order. Sometimes he was near her when she discovered his antics, and I would hear her say, “Ohhhhh, you!” as she turned toward him. The scene went into slow-mo. There wasn’t any physical display, but what a moment. Precious. Authentic. Powerful.

The meaningful look they exchanged was so intensely personal, I remember feeling happy, but almost embarrassed. I felt as though I’d photo bombed an intimate picture of their relationship.

These unforgettable interludes have stuck with me, becoming part of our family’s lexicon. In fact, my husband and I will often say, “Well, it’s like the cat and the squirrel,” as though it’s some sort of parable that everyone knows. We know.  

As it turns out my groom and I have several of our own cat-squirrel activities. One of these is when I carefully arrange dishes separately in the sink, lovingly squirting in the exact right amount of soap for a proper soaking, and he arrives a nanosecond later, dumping out the soapy water, and stacking the dishes all in one dry, towering pile.

I put down throw rugs, he picks them up. He pours cereal into a bowl, and I abscond with it, cackling as I hear him shuffling around, wondering where the flock he left it. 

We’ve acted out these silly scenarios – plus several more – over the course of our triple+ decades together. It’s these goofy moments when we’re alone that we’re exactly the same people together as we were the day we met back in 1980-something. And here’s where those lessons I mentioned at the top of the article come in for a photo finish as to which of them represents the most important one.  

Lesson One. It doesn’t matter what a marriage or relationship looks like to those on the outside, or how others might apply their personal Litmus test assessing its success. The two people in it, define it.

Lesson Two. One of the most beautiful outcomes of a long-term relationship is you notice things, ensuring your significant someone knows they’re seen, if not heard. (Kind of like what our parents told us when we were knee-high to a grasshopper.)

Lesson Three. Sharing emotional and physical space with someone to whom you’ve plighted your troth means you share a non-verbal language that’s often not spoken by anyone else.

For me, the strongest message of love is a non-verbal one, but I do need that cat-squirrel action to really send the message home. Hey, has anyone seen that bowl of granola I just poured?

Home. What an image that evokes. We often think of it as a physical structure; home ownership being an element of the American Dream to which many of us aspire.

Home. It’s not just a word, but rather an entire frame of reference. An experience. An emotional concept. That’s why the homes we make embody not just physical comfort, but they represent peaceful sanctuaries.

What happens when you don’t have a home? When it’s taken away from you? Even more painfully, what happens when it’s completely wiped off the face of the earth in mere minutes?

In the wake of the Camp Fire I’ve been thinking a lot about this concept of home.

For our family, the destruction of Paradise became more than just a news story when we received the first pictures and phone call from our daughter attending college in Chico. It was early in the morning when she saw the plume of smoke, texting me the image. The rest is a blur.

“The rest” included the horror of waiting for news as her boyfriend’s family valiantly escaped Paradise with their lives. It was her being evacuated as she described for me the indelible images that included watching the fire approach Chico, while she packed whatever she could, including her beloved cat, as she fled her apartment.

And about that boyfriend’s family. We haven’t met them face-to-face yet, but from the onset we’ve taken an emotional journey with Mama and her three kids as they drove through multiple fires, against some pretty stacked odds, to get to safety. It was her quick thinking – she was dropping off one child at school when she had a bad feeling – that made it possible for her to hurry back home to retrieve her other children.

It took her 10 hours, during which time she left a good-bye message for her husband, saying she was sorry. They all ended up safe, although they lost everything, including their beloved pets.

While it’s true, they’re luckier than many, having a place to live with the rest of her family in Chico, I’m amazed by their resilience. Every possession has been taken away, and yet Mama figured out how she could still give.

After the smoke had, quite literally, cleared this woman who lost her house, her job, her belongings, all in one day, cut her long, lustrous hair and donated it to “Locks for Love.” Are you crying yet? Okay, well try this one.

One of their cats survived. Tireless rescue workers just found him at the site of their burned out husk of a home, where he was trying to return after the fire. He is THE Christmas gift. This little kitty has singed whiskers, burned paws, and “I survived big trauma” written all over his cute little furry face. And the look written on those three kids’ faces? Sheer joy, love, and wonderment. That adorable kitty restored a smidgeon of normalcy to this family, which is Christmas gift number two.

We’re all connected. This is a reminder of not just how tenuous life is, and how much we can’t control, but how important it is to remember the connections.

We don’t need to take on all of the suffering in the country, adopt all of the children in the world, nor give away every dollar we earn. We just need to remember – and honor – the connections. What if every, single one of us offered our home just once to a critter, or a person in need? Wouldn’t that be the best home ever?

Biography. After a diverse and rewarding career in television broadcasting, Diane wended her way toward both a teaching credential, and a Master of Arts in English, earning several publishing credits in the process, including her master’s thesis highlighting the work of author, Langston Hughes entitled, Changing the Exchange. Diane lives and works in northern California, where she’s often found performing in both scheduled and unscheduled productions in front of mostly attentive audiences. Her “sit-down standup” style of writing is featured in JUST BECAUSE I’M NOT EFFIN’ FAMOUS, DOESN’T MEAN I’M NOT EFFIN’ FUNNY, which is Diane’s fifth published book. Her other books, in no particular order include: Maternal Meanderings (Humor), Last Call (Humorous Mystery), KILL-TV (Humorous Mystery). Other publishing credits also include numerous essays that have appeared in a variety of periodicals, including MORE magazine, NPR’s This I Believe, The San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento magazine, Bigger Law Firm magazine, and the Sacramento Business Journal.

Link to Union (Published 12/17/2018)

https://www.theunion.com/opinion/columns/diane-dean-epps-going-home/