by Colleen Sell
So I — like Rose — returned the big diamond from whence it came and chose the free-spirited drifter in the end.
It took three years to come to that end, during which I went to tour with a performance troupe in Europe, running away from the whole confusing situation. Calvin, undeterred by distance, wrote to me every single day — 365 letters. My troupe would arrive at our weekly mail drops, and there would be a mound of letters, all for me. This did not make me particularly popular with the rest of my team, but Calvin’s unconditional faithfulness did impress my team leader. She pulled strings to have him sent to Europe. We’ve often joked that he wore me down with sheer, annoying persistence. In truth, every heart longs to be relentlessly pursued. No one can resist it.
Touring together again, we ended up one afternoon on a mountaintop in Spain. We had crossed the border from France to renew our tourist visas. As we stood gazing over the breathtaking expanse, Calvin got down on one knee and asked me to become his bride. He has since joked that he threatened to jump if I said no, and I have since joked that he threatened to push me off if I said no. There were no actual threats involved. He was my very best friend and my most adventurous playmate. I — again, like Titanic’s Rose — was swept away by his beautiful love of life.
Fortunately, unlike Rose’s paramour, my rambling, gambling drifter didn’t disappear under the waves after a single night of passion. He also lived. And as the song goes, our love went on and on. Long enough for that lack of tidiness and fashion sense to become annoying, for worries about health insurance and mortgages to overshadow the appeal of a free spirit, and for passion to fizzle. After eighteen years of marriage, the “first thing” about love has long disappeared, but these days I’m thinking it’s the fourth, tenth, twentieth, or one-hundred-fifty-sixth thing about love that really matters.
I’m certain that had I kept the big diamond, I never would have had to pick up a dirty sock. I’d probably have more spa days and less worry about my bank balance. But I chose the man who never hesitates to cancel an important appointment in order to come home and give me a desperately needed break from the never-ending demands of my two toddlers. He sends me off to Starbucks or Barnes and Noble for the evening while he whips up his specialty of French toast for the kids. I chose the man who rubbed my feet every single night of my pregnancies. The man who still writes me love notes, even when I’m crabby, buys totally impractical presents, and makes a big embarrassing fuss over my little accomplishments. I chose the man who still couldn’t care less about what he wears or about making a lot of money, but will drop everything in a nanosecond to hunt bugs or sword-fight or play chess with our son. I chose the man who treats our daughter like a princess, showering her with the same gentle, faithful regard he’s always granted me.
The first thing about love.
I, like Maggie, am left wondering what that is.
What I do know for sure is that the true gems of love are not the Heart of the Ocean blue diamond or the big diamond engagement ring. Rather, it’s the ring of music and laughter in my home, a man who daily ushers my and my children’s wants and needs ahead of his own, and the faithful pursuit of one heart by another.
— Kristi Hemingway-Weatherall
Contributors
Tami Absi (“Live, Love, Laugh”) is a high school English teacher who resides in Dayton, Ohio. During the last three years of her husband Ron’s life, she worked as a freelance writer. Now remarried, she has two children, Jackie and Josh, both of whom are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biology at Ohio University. They take after their father, Tony, the scientist.
Judy L. Adourian (“Come Rain or Come Shine”) is the lucky wife of Jean-Marc and proud mother of two sons. Her personal essays have appeared in several publications, including five previous Cup of Comfort® anthologies. Judy recently authored “Teaching as a Spiritual Practice,” a religious exploration curriculum for which she received a Unitarian Sunday School Society grant.
Annette M. Bower (“The Romance of Ordinary Days”) lives, loves, and writes in Regina, Saskatchewan. Her writing appears in anthologies, journals, and magazines in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. She is proud of her three other stories published in the Cup of Comfort® series.
Ande Cardwell (“The Taming of the Green-Eyed Monster”) writes, paints, and kayaks in Bend, Oregon. She and her enduring husband, John, live in a simple little apartment downtown, a spit above the Deschutes River. Ande makes her living giving babies shots — a tough job, but she’s good at it.
Priscilla Carr (“To Love Greatly”), memoirist and poet, has stories published in Adams Media’s Cup of Comfort® and Hero anthology series. Her poetry appears in Grandmother’s Necklace and It Has Come to This: Poets of the Great Mother Conference. Donald Hall and Robert Bly are her mentors. She is the founder of the Poet’s Studio of New Hampshire.
Liane Kupferberg Carter (“My Year in China”) lives in New York with her husband and two sons. Her articles and essays have appeared in more than thirty publications, including the New York Times, the Huffington Post, Parents, Child, McCall’s, Glamour, Skirt!, Literary Mama, and Cosmopolitan. A 2009 winner of the Memoir Journal Prize for Memoir in Prose, she is working on a memoir about raising a child with autism.
Charmian Christie (“Café Amoré”) is a freelance writer who specializes in food, gardening, and travel. Her words, recipes, and photos appear in a wide range of magazines, books, and websites. She lives in Ontario with her husband, two cats, and more measuring cups than she cares to admit.
Nancy DeMarco (“Lime Green and Not Deep”), a massage therapist and freelance writer, lives with her husband, Jim, on a minifarm in rural New Hampshire. They share their home with an ancient guinea pig, two freeloading horses, a flock of chickens, and one psychotic guinea hen. Nancy and Jim are still very much in love.
Michelle L. Devon (“Popcorn Proposal”) is a freelance writer and aspiring novelist. The works of Erma Bombeck and Robert Fulghum, with their liberal use of humor sprinkled with poignancy, inspired her to write. Michelle recently traded the desert of West Texas for the humid Gulf Coast beaches near Galveston. She lives and loves there with her two-legged and four-legged family members.
Shawnelle Eliasen (“The Secret of Rugged Terrain”) and her husband, Lonny, raise their bevy of boys in Port Byron, Illinois. They live in an old Victorian on the Mississippi River, where Shawnelle home-teaches her youngest sons. Her stories have been printed in Guideposts, Momsense, Marriage Partnership, and anthologies.
Connie Ellison (“Loving Done Right”) teaches English at Sandusky Middle School in Lynchburg, Virginia. She lives with her husband, Andrew, and two children, Jean Prince and James Moses, in Elon, Virginia. She is the author of the book AnyRoad: The Story of a Virginia Tobacco Farm.
Suzanne Endres (“As Long as Forever”) loves to write, read, garden, play with her dogs, goats, and cats, and hang out with her children and grandchildren. She lives in Idaho with her best friend and husband, Alan, in a cabin near HooDoo Mountain. She gets inspiration for stories from her family and pets.
Michele Forsten (“Improv at the Altar”), a college communications director, lives in New York City. Personal essays about her breast cancer experiences have appeared in Mamm and The Advocate magazines as well as on public radio. She and Barbara were married in Massachusetts in 2008, marking twenty-five years of being a couple. Their ceremony was as unconventional and spontaneous as the Maine event portrayed in this story.
Annette Gendler (“A Room of His Own”) lives in Chicago with her husband and three children. Her essays have appeared in Natural Bridge, Bellevue Literary Review, Kaleidoscope, Under the Sun, South Loop Review, and on flashquake.com. She holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, and teaches memoir writing and English composition. She also does public relations and advertising for her children’s school.
Ariella Golani (“Matchmaker”) and her family live in New England. A graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University, she attended
the Hebrew University as a visiting scholar and holds a JD from the University of Michi-gan Law School. She has completed her first novel and is at work on the sequel.
Kristi Hemingway-Weatherall (“The First Thing about Love”) is a writer, performing artist, and English/theater teacher. Her greatest role to date is as Mom to Levi and Eden. While living in Denver, Colorado, she often dreams of Southern France. You can find Kristi’s writing in countless magazines and anthologies. She has just completed her first novel.
Erika Hoffman (“Intestinal Fortitude”) is a narrative essayist whose work has been featured in nationally known magazines and anthologies, including several Cup of Comfort® editions. Erika and her husband make their home in North Carolina.
Gina Farella Howley (“180 Seconds to a Lifetime”) taught special education for fifteen years. Currently, she is privileged to be a stay-at-home mom to sons Martin, Joseph, and Timothy, in their Naperville, Illinois, home, and to pursue her lifelong dream of writing. She and her husband, John, remain South Siders at heart.
Michelle Hozey (“Love Shack”) is a freelance writer and proud Air Force wife. Her work has been published in newspapers, magazines, and online. She and her husband live in Fort Dix, New Jersey, with their superhero cats, Batman and Robin.
Amy Hudock, PhD (“Garlic Soup”) is a writer, professor, and editor who lives in South Carolina with her family. She is a co-founder of the e-zine LiteraryMama and co-editor of Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined and American Women Prose Writers, 1820–1870. Her essays appear in several Cup of Comfort® books; Ask Me about My Divorce; Mama, PhD; Single State of the Union; Mothering a Movement; and other anthologies.
Carolyn Huhn-Sullivan (“Heart and Sole”) lives in Beaverton, Oregon, with her husband, Dan, and their three children, Jonathan, Nicholas, and Emma. By day she is an executive manager; by night she is a mother, wife, and friend. Carolyn is the oldest grandchild of Arthur and Parina Rodondi; she will be forever grateful to them for their sage marital advice.
Craig Idlebrook (“Retiring Bill Pullman”) is a freelance writer in Maine. He’s written about parenthood for Mothering, Funny Times, Boot Camp for New Dads, and A Cup of Comfort® for Fathers. As a reporter and essayist, he is a regular contributor to Mother Earth News, the Hill Country Observer, and AAA Northern New England Experience.
Phyllis Jardine (“First Love”) is a retired nurse and military wife living in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia with her husband, Bud, and black Lab, Morgan.
Madeleine M. Kuderick (“Three Little Words”) lives on Florida’s Gulf Coast with her husband and two children. She works in the fastpaced medical device industry but takes time to enjoy life’s simple pleasures, including evening walks with her husband and writing. Her work appears in several other anthologies.
Cathi LaMarche (“Wildly in Love”) is the author of the novel While the Daffodils Danced. She has written for several anthologies, including A Cup of Comfort® for Divorced Women and A Cup of Comfort® for Dog Lovers II. She teaches English and writing in Missouri, where she resides with her adventurous husband, two children, and three dogs.
Beverly Lessard (“Who Could Ask for Anything More?”) and her imperfect husband, Philip, reside in Stow, Massachusetts, where she writes a weekly column for the local newspaper. They have three daughters and eight grandchildren. Beverly received an engineering degree from the University of Maine in 1972, and in 1986 she started Box-boro Children’s Center.
Tina Lincer (“When His and Hers Becomes Ours”) has written for numerous newspapers, magazines, and anthologies; her personal essays also have aired on public radio. A former labor editor and dance critic, she lives in upstate New York, where she is associate director of communications at Union College. She is at work on a novel and a memoir.
Patricia Ljutic (“Love Check”), a registered nurse, lives in California with her husband, son, a variety of art projects, a dog, and two rats. Her work has appeared in regional and national publications, including A Cup of Comfort®for Parents of Children with Special Needs and My Mom Is My Hero.
Allison Maher (“Girlfriend”) lives on a small fruit farm in Aylesford, Nova Scotia, with her boyfriend, Dave. She is a full-time farmer and part-time writer. Her first novel, I, The Spy, was nominated for the Red Cedar Readers’ Choice Award and has been listed on Kayak Magazine’s Recommended Reading List. Cup of Comfort® editor Colleen Sell is her favorite elf.
Tina Wagner Mattern (“My Other Husband”) is a Portland, Oregon, hairstylist and writer who has been published several times in internationally known short-story anthologies. She has been happily married for thirty years to Fred/ Freddie and is the mother of a twenty-nine-year-old son, Aaron, and a twenty-six-year-old daughter, Summer.
Lorri McDole (“Biscuits and Olives”) has published stories in various print and online publications, including Brain/Child, The Rambler, Eclectica, A Cup of Comfort® for Writers, Epiphany, and New Madrid. She was a finalist in the 2007 Annie Dillard Creative Nonfiction Contest (Bellingham Review) and lives in a Seattle suburb with her husband and two children.
Jann Mitchell-Sandstrom (“A Love Worth Waiting For”) is a retired journalist and the author of four books. She lives in Oregon, Sweden, and Tanzania — always with her hand out for donations for the Bibi Jann Children’s Care Trust (www.bibijann.org). From African fabrics, she quilts ethnic wall-hangings to sell on behalf of her bibis. She urges others to always follow their hearts.
Wade Morgan (“Lost and Found”), a native of Seward, Alaska, spent his youth enjoying the simple pleasures of childhood in rural Alaska. He finally grew up at the age of forty-three, and shortly thereafter met the love of his life, Martha. He writes for the pleasure it brings to him and to others who may enjoy his stories.
Faith Paulsen (“Love Imitates Art”) has published her writing in A Cup of Comfort® for Parents of Children with Special Needs and A Cup of Comfort® for Mothers as well as Literary Mama and Wild River Review. She lives in subur- ban Philadelphia with her husband, Bart, three kids, and various pets.
Mary C. M. Phillips (“Love and the Un-Romantic”) is a musician and writer of poetry and short stories. She has toured nationally as a keyboardist, bass player, and singer for various rock groups and musical comedy artists. She resides in New York with her husband and son.
Felice Prager (“The Almost-Proposal”) is a freelance writer and multisensory educational therapist from Scottsdale, Arizona. Hundreds of her essays have been published locally, nationally, and internationally in print and on the Internet. She is the author of Quiz It: Arizona.
Julie Clark Robinson (“The Piece of Paper That Almost Blinded Me”) is (still) married to David — happily, in fact. While list-making remains part of her life, she restricts the contents to freelance writing projects. She is the author of Live in the Moment, and her essays have appeared in Family Circle and several Cup of Comfort® anthologies.
Deborah Shouse (“How the Funny Papers Rocked My World”) is a writer, speaker, editor, and creativity catalyst. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Reader’s Digest, Newsweek, Woman’s Day, Family Circle, Spirituality & Health, and The Chicago Tribune. She has authored a variety of books and writes a weekly love story column for the Kansas City Star.
Stephanie Springsteen (“The Prism”) is a former software developer and now a full-time mom living in Chicago with her husband and two children. She wrote for Loyola University’s literary journal, Cadence, as an undergraduate and has been studying memoir for the past three years at StoryStudio Chicago.
Joyce Stark (“A Gift for Women”) lives in northeast Scotland. She travels widely in the United States and Europe and writes travel articles as well as essays for U.S. and European publications, including several Cup of Comfort® books.
Sylvia Suriano-Diodati (“Love, Italian Style”) is a piano teacher, songwriter, and writer of short stories and poetry. She lives in the outskirts of Toronto with her husband, Ludovico, and their daughter, Isabella. A hopeless roma
ntic, Sylvia is currently working on a novel series, hoping to inspire young readers with her passion for love, life, and spirituality.
Barbara Neal Varma (“Dancing with My Husband”) is an award-winning writer in Southern California who has written for Image, Toastmaster Magazine, WritersWeekly. com, and various other magazines and literary journals. Her essays have won awards from Writer’s Digest, the National Writers Association, and Anthology magazine.
Samantha Ducloux Waltz (“Supersized Love”) is an award-winning freelance writer in Portland, Oregon. Her stories can be seen in the Cup of Comfort® series and numerous other anthologies. Ray, her husband, is often her muse. Samantha has also published fiction and nonfiction under the name Samellyn Wood.
Kelly Wilson (“The Anniversary Gift”) is a busy mom and freelance writer. She is the author of Live Cheap & Free! Strategies to Thrive in Tough Economic Times as well as numerous articles and short stories for children and adults. Kelly lives with her husband and two small children in Portland, Oregon.
Mary E. Winter (“Built with Tender Loving Care”) is a retired teacher who is currently writing a mystery/romance novel. She and her carpenter husband live in rural Wis-consin. They recently built a playhouse for their three granddaughters, who love to sleep out there and make up their own stories.
Suzanne Yoder (“Willow Weep No More”) is an elementary school teacher who lives in Kalona, Iowa, with her husband and two children, Jackson and Alison. This is the first story she has written specifically for publication; she felt her parents’ story was too remarkable not to be shared. After five months in the rehabilitation center, her dad returned home, where he continues his rehabilitation with his bride by his side.