Happy Anniversary to Carol, My Chief Angel
God is blessing us once again
If you build it, they will come.
Those are famous words from the movie Field of Dreams.
Though those whisperings at twilight, heard by Kevin Costner’s protagonist, might seem to pertain only to a baseball-loving farmer in Iowa, they are, of course, words that speak to something much deeper in all of us.
If you believe in something lovely and imaginative, if you have faith, you can transform your life.
Carol, my wife, with whom I am about to share our first anniversary, has indeed transformed my life.
I believe very deeply in God, and I am convinced that God has sent angels to me over the years and over many lifetimes.
Carol is my chief angel, and God did send her to me, so that I can do something beautiful, just as a higher power communicates a message of love to Costner’s lead in Field of Dreams.
Carol came into my life three years ago at a time when I was not doing well.
Without getting into too much detail, I was suffering for many reasons in 2023, when a dear friend introduced Carol and me.
Carol very charmingly had sent another dear friend to my house to vet yours truly.
Both of our mutual friends played a significant role in bringing Carol and me together.
Of course, I know that it was God, who really did this for Carol and me.
God was whispering to us.
Go the distance.
Yes, we must all go the distance, when we hear God’s call, when God summons us to do something positive.
No doubt there have been times when I thought that my life was near the end, when I thought that I might perish.
But I have persisted, as has Carol, who has come into or in fact returned to my life, and who is saving me.
As we approach our first anniversary, Carol and I have been having lots of fun, lots of adventures.
We recently drove across the country with Kathy, Carol’s sister, and Pepper, our puppy.
Among other sites we visited on our two-week trek across the United States was the Grand Canyon, where we observed the sun, as it set on the primordial slabs of rock, carved out in all their intricacy and majesty by the Colorado River.
I recognize that not everyone believes in God, but, after you view in person the Grand Canyon’s rock formations, with their variety of shapes and sizes and colors, you are far more likely to sense that only God, only our Creator, could have devised something so elegant and idiosyncratic.
Carol, Kathy, Pepper and I were even more astonished in some respects by Zion Canyon in Utah, where the colors and shapes of the rock formations seem to be even more sublime and dazzling in their reds, oranges, purples and other patterns of hue.
In the course of our journey, we drove through Texas, through flood warnings and thunderstorms that were somewhat daunting.
We walked a few blocks in the French Quarter in New Orleans one night, a place I visited on a family trip when I was a kid.
A day later, Carol, Kathy, Pepper and I saw a double rainbow, as we drove through Georgia, which reminded us of God’s covenant with Noah, God’s promise to preserve mankind and our planet in spite of our sins as humans.
Of course, we made many pit stops along the way, for pottie breaks at doggie parks, at Love’s gas stations and elsewhere, for Pepper and the rest of us.
We spent three glorious days in New York City, where we saw Every Brilliant Thing, a one-person play starring Mariska Hargitay, Kathy’s favorite actor.
Kathy got to high-five Mariska, as the star of the play raced up and down an aisle and engaged audience members during one particular scene.
Carol asked me to take her to Pier 11, where on August 4, 1989, I gave the keynote address for the inaugural run of the “Baseball Ferry,” a ferry that took fans to Shea Stadium, then the home of the New York Mets.
That was an earlier Field of Dreams moment in my life when God undoubtedly whispered in my ear during my time as a waterfront planner at the New York City Parks Department.
We later drove to Niagara Falls, which Carol and I visited roughly a year ago on a previous cross-country trek.
It too is a natural site that inspires awe and wonder with its two sets of falls which spray mist in shades of blue and green on Canadians, Americans and everyone who visits.
On our drive across this country, we also stopped in Detroit, where we tried to visit the Motown museum, which sadly had closed early that day.
As we had a year ago, we dined at Mario’s, a classic Italian restaurant, where our tuxedoed server, the same one from last summer, brought us a five-course meal, antipasto, minestrone, house salad, our main course, and pasta.
We had a three and one-half hour meal with a dear friend, while we listened to the music of Sinatra and other crooners.
Carol and I have bonded over the songs of Sinatra and Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, as I noted in a Substack piece last summer, “Driving Across the Country with Dylan and Sinatra.”
Carol is not only my chief angel; she is my DJ in chief, who always senses when I need to hear “Jumping Jack Flash” by the Stones, or a Beach Boys tune, or “New York, New York,” or “Blood on the Tracks.”
She began each day on our drive with a song that invariably fit the moment, whether it was “Homeward Bound” by Simon & Garfunkel, “Wouldn’t it be Nice” by the Beach Boys, or any other song she selected.
Carol does have an uncanny ability to know what I need, to know what I like, to keep me going, so that I will go the distance, to speak in Field of Dreams terms once again.
Yes, I am going the distance on our journey, as Carol and I did on our recent cross-country adventure.
Not surprisingly, we stopped in Dyersville, Iowa, where we played ball with a young couple, on the Field of Dreams itself, the very field that Costner’s character scythes and fashions out of the cornfields.
During our time at the actual Field of Dreams, Carol, Pepper and I fielded grounders at shortstop, my old position from childhood, while Kathy umpired and coached slightly up the third base line.
We had a proverbial ball with the young husband and wife, who likewise were traveling across the country, in their case across a number of Midwestern states on a movie-themed tour.
Carol and I continued on our journey with Kathy and Pepper to Mount Rushmore, as well as Crazy Horse.
We reached Mount Rushmore a few days before the wannabe dictator arrived.
For that matter, we avoided by a few days the extreme heat that oppressed Manhattan after we left the city.
We also managed to stay away from the fires that engulfed areas of Utah and Colorado when we drove to Zion.
In-between Zion and Mount Rushmore, we drove for hours through Yellowstone, where we spotted what we believe was a buffalo, not a moose, who was gently escorted off the main road and onto the grass by a van of park rangers.
We did not see any bears.
But we saw bighorn sheep, several of whom gathered by the side of the road, intriguing Pepper, who was almost as excited as she was when she chased after balls on the Field of Dreams in Dyersville.
We also saw two splendid deer in Yellowstone, one of whom was particularly tall and elegant.
And we were enchanted by a herd of mountain goats, who munched on vegetation, as they navigated the switchbacks and the slender ledges of Zion Canyon.
Yes, this is a glorious country, and Carol and I got to experience much of it on our recent vacation.
Soon, as I say, we will be celebrating our first anniversary.
There will, of course, be more surprises and treats from God and from angels sent to us.
I am grateful to God for all of the joys in life, which is a theme of Every Brilliant Thing, the play we saw with Kathy on Broadway.
Yes, we should be grateful for ice cream, for waking up in bed late with someone you love, for the way that Ray Charles says the word, “Yeah,” when he sings.
And we should be grateful for love, for finding an angel, who loves us.
No one loves us more than God, who is love.
There are some secrets that have been revealed to me over time.
These secrets are potentially open to all of us.
It is clear to me that Carol has been my angel in all of her incarnations, in all of her many forms, in all of her roles, and mine.
All the world is a stage, as Shakespeare wrote.
We all do have our entrances and exits, and we all do play many parts in the course of one lifetime and others.
God has indeed sent Carol to save me, something that she has done before, many times before, across time, across the generations.
Thank you, sweetheart, for being my chief angel and wife.
And thank you for doing God’s will and healing His pain and mine.
You are blessing me, and I am forever grateful.
Happy anniversary, Carol, my love!
