Tragedy and Truth: What May Day Means to Me

My parents were married on this date in 1945. If they had stayed married to each other they could have celebrated their 60th anniversary in 2005. My dad died in 2011. And my mom would have been a widow from 2011 until her death in 2021. This song was sung at their wedding: "Because you come to me with naught save love, And hold my hand and lift mine eyes above, A wider world of hope and joy I see, Because you come to me. "Because God made thee mine I'll cherish thee Thru light and darkness thru all time to be, And pray His love may make our love divine, Because God made you mine. "Because you speak to me in accents sweet, I find the roses waking 'round my feet, And I am led through tears and joy to thee, Because you speak to me." "Because" by Edward Teschemacher and Guy d'Hardelot (1902) I have misplaced it now, but thank God, I have a picture of it on my phone. It is a handwritten note, dated January 31,1954. My father's birthday was February 2, he was born in 1922. It says, Dearest Jeanne, "If you could write some poetry," you say, "Perhaps I'd come to love you some, one day." So I take a pen in hand and try to think of something grand That I could say in an obscure and poetic way. But though for you I'd go through endless strife, And though your love is my primary goal in life, If I sat 'til I was gray, This is all that I could say, "I love you very much, my darling wife." All my love, Glenn I can't find who wrote that poem, but is quite possible that my dad wrote it, because he was a writer too, besides being a lawyer and a judge, a musician and an actor (he played the violin and acted in all the bar shows). He told me once he had considered journalism for a career, and I believe he composed the article about my parents' wedding which took place in Southampton, England. Isn't that what all of us crave? A love that lasts forever and ever, and happily ever after? Of course it is, and everybody knows it. Isn't that what most of the hit songs are about? Promises of that kind of love or songs about the devastation caused by the failure of that love to deliver. Well, it is now past my bedtime, and it is still a school night. And so I will just close by saying how grateful I am for the only love that truly delivers what it promises, and that is the love of God who "so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). I think about my parents' marriage every year on May 1, and that is what May Day will always mean to me. "May Day" also refers to an internationally recognized distress signal in aviation and maritime contexts, meaning "help me". And that is also significant to me because that is the prayer for myself that I pray the most. I would like to write more about topic, both the tragedy of divorce and about praying "Help me," but I just want to say that God is love. "Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:7-10). And so, Amen. Goodnight.