The wedding

Would I ever risk marrying again?

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On the fourth of July, two dear friends married by the sea. They wore the colors of sunset as they exchanged vows under a rainbow arch of tropical flowers. I teared up in the catch in their voices as they held hands and said, “You, among all others, are precious to me. I choose you, ‘till death do us part.”

When the officiant asked the crowd to affirm the marriage, I cried, “We do!” with a catch in my own. It was my first wedding since my divorce. I squeezed my date’s hand, both of our ring fingers bare, as we listened to vows we’d both been unable to keep.

We cheered as the newlyweds ran down the aisle, faces blazing. We threw rose petals and made toasts and danced to Madonna. The evening was tender and joyous and bittersweet. As we closed down the dance floor to Don’t Stop Believin’, I wondered: Would I ever risk marrying a second time? I love the thought of having my person, but I couldn’t bear to botch it again.

Walking in Green-Wood after the wedding. July 2023.

After the wedding, I walked in Green-Wood Cemetery to untangle my thoughts. It’s the place I head when I need to make sense of starting over. I love the peaceful paths and old oaks and graves that remember a person by their relationships, like Mother, Husband, or Beloved. They say that say loved ones are gone but not forgotten.

I wandered into a new meadow, thick with golden coreopsis, and sat by a grave that said Husband. Someone had placed a fresh American flag that fluttered in the flowers. Did a patriotic relative put it there for the fourth of July? Or a wife, remembering her person? What did she know about marriage that I missed somehow?

You, among all others, are precious to me. I choose you, ‘till death do us part.

Three years ago, in my heartsick early days of divorce, a Husband headstone would have felt like failure. My life had imploded overnight and I needed someone to blame for the breakdown. In my first summer single, I blamed my ex. To steel myself for the split, I tallied all the hurts and the nights spent alone. By my second summer single, I blamed myself. Maybe if I’d been more patient and less critical we could have made things work. If I’d just tried harder, perhaps I’d still have a husband.

Now, in my third summer single, I sat in the golden flowers and thought about all the things about marriage that I didn’t know before. I had no idea, when I married at 26, that I had confused a love story with a life story. I had mixed up romance, with its intoxicating passion and drama, with the kind of relationship that endures. I naively thought that the marriage vow itself could bind a rocky relationship into something stable. I didn’t yet know that some promises are too costly to keep.

I thought about what I’d learned as I opened myself up to love again at 41. The first time a man helped me make the bed in the morning, I burst into tears. Nobody had ever helped me smooth the sheets before. Nobody had ever brought me coffee in bed or held my hand in the grocery store. No one had ever played one last slow song in our hotel room after a wedding because we weren’t done dancing.

Each small kindness felt like a promise: this can be different. I didn’t know such quiet tenderness was possible, and you can’t blame yourself for what you didn’t know.

* * *

The word “vow,” from Latin, means a “solemn promise,” or a “wish, longing or prayer.” It feels airily aspirational, as if the earnestness of the words themselves have a magic power to make a marriage. I had said them earnestly enough at 26, standing under my own arch of flowers. But when I woke up married the next morning, I didn’t feel any different. The vows hadn’t made us closer or more secure. They were just words, along with a big party and a piece of paper.

Yet the word “devote”—to apply yourself to a vow—feels more solid. Devotion is not concerned with grand promises or a far-off finish line. Devotion is the daily act of tending things you care about. I devote myself to my garden, my friendships, and my writing. Devotion feels like pulling weeds and sowing seeds and creating space for what may bloom. It feels like the small, daily kindnesses that nurture a partnership.

It feels like holding hands in the grocery store. It feels like a promise I can keep.

Green-Wood. July 2023.

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Liz is a writer and photographer based in Brooklyn.