Birthdays: Rick, August 9, 1948 Kathleen, January 21, 1964

Married: September 22, 1984, St. Bernadette's Church, Rockford, IL

To parents of special needs kids, I would tell you that the statistics about marriages not lasting through having kids in life threatening situations, it's true. It's really tough. When one of you is really off course, the other has to stay on and prod the other back on the right path. It's a marathon filled with a lot of sprints.

Rick and I are complete opposites. He is an engineer, which means he is "left brained." I am definitely "right brained" which means politically I am more left! In any case, we once were both prevailed upon to take a class on how the brain works. We took the course with the same instructor at different times. Part of the class had the student take a test that resulted in a graph that showed how strong each quadrant of your brain functioned. When I had completed mine, the instructor asked permission to use my and my spouse's graphs without our names in the next part of my class. Intrigued, I said, "of course."
After the break, the instructor began lecturing on the left and right sides of the brain. He spoke then of marriage, and why Opposites Attract. He explained that in relationships, we are initially enthralled with someone of complete opposite brain strength, as they 'complete' us. As an example, he said he wanted to show a married couple who had taken the class, one an engineer from an earlier class and the other his spouse from a current class (me, of course.) There on the projector sheet was a first a picture of an off the charts left spiked brain, with no angles on the right, just a bit of curve. He explained that this made for a man brilliant in aerospace, math, all things technical, but a bit...um, engineer like in things social. Then he overlapped that chart with mine. I had NO left brain. Just huge right spikes. He explained this chart showed someone who loved people, talking, art, writing, people, people, people, but couldn't change a light bulb without calling AAA for assistance.
The beauty of this kind of marriage, he pointed out, was that between the two, they had AN ENTIRE BRAIN. There was nothing they couldn't overcome, IF they put their heads together. On THE OTHER HAND, our wise teacher noted, this type of couple also has the highest divorce rate, because they had no idea how their spouse could possibly think like that! And it's been true. Rick and I have had some awful times, completely incompatible, hateful even, when we realize we need to apply the gift and split the tasks according to our gifts. It's allowed us to survive.
More importantly than surviving, after 22 years, we've both mellowed a lot. Our youngest daughter has brought us immense joy. We are able to relax about even the worst of news, knowing that whatever comes our way, it's never the worst thing that can happen. Rather than being insulated in our own cocoon of worry, I spend a lot of time involved in the outside world through the computer, campaigning for various political and social causes, and Rick listens to all of that. He agrees, that even on our worst day, we have it so much better than parents in most of the world. I wish we could get more Americans to realize that. Before splitting up over differences, or joining a gym for "me time", or taking another job for more "things" it would be great to get some of the parents we know to take a good hard look at why American kids are some of the most depressed in the world. But I'll save that for another page!
I considered pointing out the biggest difference between Rick and I, but it would only invite unwanted email from well intentioned persons looking to save us both. My delete button would be smokin' :)

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