MOMENTUM by Judy Coppel

We lived in our marriage for seventeen years. We seesawed from the high of blissful exploration and sexuality that began our life together into the balancing act that dominated the middle years.

Those years began with so much promise. And then, President Kennedy was assassinated, Vietnam raged, my husband who was in the Air Force, stationed in Charleston, South Carolina, was never deployed overseas. We were, in fact, living in Charleston when our first child was born. She had a full head of silky black hair and long black lashes that caressed her cheeks while she slept. There was no denying her Mediterranean heritage, a distinct contrast to the soft white down that covered the heads of most other infants in the nursery.

When AnnMargaret was just four months old, her father was discharged and we moved back to Miami to begin our real life together. Ours was a very traditional marriage. He worked. I stayed home to raise our daughter and the other children we wanted. He struggled to find meaningful work, but somehow we slogged on. Finally, through a family friend he got a referral to work in an insurance agency, and found the niche he had been looking for.

The birth of our first child had been so easy we had no reason to anticipate problems with any future children. I teetered between happiness and depression as the next five pregnancies ended in miscarriage. Finally, I was able to carry a second child to term, only to learn a week before her birth that she would not be born alive. I had joyfully prepared the nursery for her arrival…instead I came home with empty arms and a heavy heart. Shortly thereafter we moved into our new four bedroom home, purchased with the expectation of more children.

Believing we wouldn’t have another biological child the decision was made to adopt. On the day the agency called to tell me our application for adoption had been accepted, I learned I was pregnant again. The pregnancy was fraught with problems and misgivings. As we drove to the hospital for the birth of our third child we decided that if the baby was a girl her name would be Joy. And, indeed, she has lived up to her name. When Joy was just nine months old, to my surprise, I learned I was pregnant again. Not surprisingly, considering my history, the obstetrician strongly recommended a tubal ligation after the birth of our son, Marc. Our family was complete.

My husband was a good man, I was a good woman, but we were beginning to lose our balance. The world outside came into our home every evening by way of national news. There were more assassinations, Watergate, Woodstock, Hippies, free love, and the Women’s Movement. I celebrated my thirtieth birthday by going to hear Gloria Steinem speak and purchased her newest book which she autographed. We were feeling the pull of earth’s gravity and were fearful we would never soar again. We were weighted down by financial issues, children, and the awakening realization that we had limited our potentials, our possibilities, by our choices: each other.

We spent long evenings into early mornings talking endlessly about our issues, how to make our marriage work, how to make it better. I tried going back to school, he sabotaged my efforts. I tried enlarging our circle of friends, he refused to participate. He started to abuse substances, proposed an open marriage. Nothing was working.

One evening the children begged to attend a carnival sponsored by the elementary school they attended. Finally, their father was persuaded to go with us. Our son was very excited about a two-person ride, (with a name like Seesaw or Rocket) and asked his father to go on the ride with him. Sadly, he sullenly refused. Seeing the disappointment on my then seven year old son’s face, I offered to go on the ride with him. The object of the ride was to use the weight of your body and holding onto the metal bar create enough momentum to propel the cage up and over the top. We stepped into the cage and rocked back and forth until our momentum carried us over the top as we loosed the pull of earth’s gravity. I looked down on my husband and the father of my children, knowing as we went over the top that we were leaving him behind and soaring into a new life.