photo by J. Leckszas

“Are you getting married?” Ms. Clark quizzingly asked me.

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, “in April.”

Ms. Mary Clark has been a LebCamp resident for the last three LebCamps.  I had gone by her home a few days ago to check on something that was causing her some concern.  After talking about her family and raising one of her nieces, Ms. Clark turns her wit and wisdom towards my future.

“Marriage is hard work,” she said.  “You have to take a little and give a little.”  As we stood around in her LebCamp-painted back room, she shared quite openly about her marriage and the struggles she experienced and the eventual divorce.

Ms. Clark then told me that it’s important to be patient in a marriage.  “Womans . . . well,” she says as she begins to chuckle.  “I am one, so I know,” she says.   She began to pat her chest as she said, “We got a lot stuff going on in here, you just got to be patient.”

And I respectfully said, “Yes, ma’am.”