 Ralph and I met in 1974 at a community softball game in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shortly after I arrived up north. He
was the catcher, I was up at bat. The rest, as they
say, is history. We married in 1979, took off to Europe for an extended
honeymoon and had many glorious years that involved good times and bad--the bad mostly being his battle with cancer.This picture was taken by Christopher Little, Ralph's college buddy and dear friend, at a celebration of our marriage. Ralph and I tackled life together in the true style of children of the 60's. Everything was questioned...especially tradition. We got married at Cambridge City Hall in June 21, 1979--the first day of summer--just the two of us--and we then walked down to Harvard Square for a nice dinner. We ran into a friend who we had not seen for awhile, she said "Hey what have you two been up to?" (He He) We said, "Oh we just got married. About an hour ago". We then had a series of celebrations in Florida and New England acknowledging the big event. We overheard the 2 mother-in-laws talking and one commented "I just hope she never regrets not having that white wedding dress". Somehow, she never did. It was the best wedding ever and as people close to us know, a wonderful marriage that ended way before it should have, due to the dreaded melanoma. What is that in the sky? Why, its a plane pulling a banner celebrating the union of Betty and Ralph. It was a fabulous surprise organized by our Connecticut friends and a reference to our great "It's a wonderful life" tradition----- whereby a group of us would flock to NYC every December to watch the great Frank Capra movie, celebrate the holidays and cry at this wonderful, sappy story. There were a couple of New Yorker articles written about this party and as soon as I dig them out they will appear here. (As Ralph always said, "Everything is somewhere").  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- September 7, 2013 One of the difficult things about losing someone you love, like Ralph, is the simple fact that your life continues...you grow older...but he doesn't. Ralph always wanted me to have a happy life. Before he died, he gave me permission to move on in my life. It wasn't entirely direct...we weren't fully able to face the inevitability that Melanoma would take him....but in his own way, he talked about how important it was to him that I, Lucy and Jack had a happy life. That I would remarry, and they would have a father in their life. That did happen when Curtis came into our lives, bringing 2 additional kids to enrich our family, David and Jeremy. Curtis understands the wonderful life I had with Ralph. And, somewhere, some how, Ralph appreciates that our lives continue to be rich and loving. |