Companionship

09/27/08

I remember as a college freshman writing to my parents and asking them if they still had sex. I seems their marriage had reached a dead end and I wondered why they still lived together. There certainly was no indication of a broken marriage other than not detecting heavy breathing, moans, or squeaky bedsprings. Now, I am they. There are still a few pennies left in the sex jar which Mary and I filled our first year of marriage. It is now being refilled with companionship.

To me companionship transcends marriage bonds, togetherness, and love. It is so difficult to describe and rare to experience that even poets shy away from the subject. Companionship is not legal, biological, taught in school, or with a drinking buddy. It is the knowledge there is another part of you, a part you are unable to will into being, yet there. Companionship just happens as if it chose you. As the last pennies disappear, I have come to realize that what now fills our jar is what our relationship is all about.