“It’s Wonderful.”
Ray and I might get used to this shuttle riding. When we finished recording late Tuesday night, we walked back to our hotel, a bit disappointed that we needed to run to a store before getting to sleep. Then, I realized we could call the shuttle again. This time Ray and I both got to meet an inspiring driver, another African American about our age. I’ll call him Edward.
As we rode home from our errand, we learned that Edward was from Chicago. Asking how he ended up in Nashville, Edward responded that he had come to go to college at Tennessee State University. When he found a wife in Nashville, he decided to stay.
“Are you still married?” I asked.
“Yes! Thirty-eight years,” he replied. “It’s wonderful.”
Edward smiled and thought about how wonderful it is after 38 years, and Ray and I smiled and thought about how wonderful it is after 42.
One of the sweetest songs that John Lennon and Paul McCartney ever wrote is “When I’m 64.” In this, Ray’s 64th year, he’s enjoyed singing the closing line:
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four?
In the Beatles’ song, a pining young man asks his beloved if she will still send him a Valentine and birthday greetings when he gets older and is losing his hair? Will she lock the door when he is out too late?
The young man recognizes that his beloved will be older, too, and asks her simply to say the word and he’ll be with her then, suggesting that she can knit a sweater by the fire and that if she needs a handyman he could be hers.
The singer pictures for his chosen girl a future of going for rides, doing the garden, digging weeds, and spending time each summer in a cottage on the Isle of Wight, saying that they will scrimp and save to afford it. He also pictures for her the grandchildren on her knee.
The song ends with a request that she send him a postcard stating exactly what her point of view is on his request.
The pining young man hopes she will be “mine forevermore.” That’s exactly how God wants it to work.
Let your fountain be blessed,
And rejoice in the wife of your youth.
Proverbs 5:18