An open letter to Camille Davis, prenuptial.

Hi Camille.

I’m just starting to feel guilty about blowing off your wedding. Feeling guilty, as you know, leads to psychic distress. In order not to suffer a dissociative incident, excuses are deployed as a defense. Here are a few, in escalating levels of truth. My primary reasons for staying in Rantoul are purely practical. I am in the middle of a humanitarian relief effort regarding the cat population. To board the cats now would set them back by ramping up the stress. I myself have difficulty with air travel and eating due to diabetes. Although I feel that I should support Del (and you), I lack courage when it comes to contemplating scenes between your mother -my wife -, your father and his mate. I really don’t like big social occasions. I’m deaf as a doornail. I’ll look foolish and be miserable.

Here is the hinge point in this essay: I said that I support Del. I know she wants me to go to this thing. Along with her dislike of her ex, it is a favorite topic of hers. However, my support of your mother is not lip service shallow. I know she puts up with much nonsense from me, but she gets a sort of general support which I have discovered is all too rare. I treat all of her endeavors with respect. I carefully honor her independence as a human being. I try to sneak up on her with generosities, demonstrating that I hear what she says and am responsive. I am appreciative of her generosities and, especially, that she allows me my independence. In addition to all of this, we love each other and she’s my BFF.

So even though my friends and family think it’s brave of me (because of endless retaliation from my spouse) to skip my ‘stepdaughter’s wedding,’ – (I hate that expression, since it establishes an artificial familiar relationship) – I am ignoring all of that advice because I am confident of my relationship with my wife. It gets confusing to determine the lines of courage and cowardice. In my mind, giving in to doing something I don’t want to do because it would be cowardly to do it does not provide the needed incentive.

On the other hand, my absence does not indicate a lack of support for you and the life altering event that you are undertaking. I have always been aware of your faith and force of personality. Although I’ve made much fun of the biblical wedding at Cana lately, I recall that you have had your mother and I thumbing the Bible from our second date forward. We learned from the concordance just exactly how many times fornication is mentioned. Also, back in the day, I came very close to becoming a preacher myself in one of those moments when, like Huckabee, I felt the need to choose between rock and roll and the Lord. I chose rock and roll, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still preach a gospel. An artist’s life is always a matter of spirit and sensibility. So I get who you are, I think, and generally get what you’re trying to do. Make something of a life: It makes a big difference.

You will stand before the gathering first as a young single adult, and you will be changed by vow into a married woman. That is, even though it seems like a lot at the moment, the easy part. Marriage takes work. It has been a very hard lesson for me to learn, but the work of it has to do with tolerance. If your husband Jim doesn’t ever ask you to do something you don’t want to do, it will be a miracle. Not even our Lord could pull it off! If you do every fool thing he wants, you’ll be a soul lost to yourself. You will always be threading the needle of yourself with the thread of tolerance. After whatever transpires at your nuptials recedes into your history, you will find yourself closer to me, closer to the spirit these words try to grab from the futile silence; you will be working on a marriage. I have faith that you’ll make it a masterpiece. I’ll be with you both in spirit. It may not seem like it, but you can take it on faith.

All my best,
Ken Beck