My morning routine includes checking the obituaries over coffee. As the comedian Carl Reiner instructed, \u201cEach morning, check the obits to see if you\u2019re listed. If not, eat breakfast.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a recent morning, there was \u201cPatricia Ann Stadick.\u201d As I do with each name, my mind flipped it around, seeing if I could make a connection. A light bulb burst on. That was Pat of \u201cRalph and Pat!\u201d<\/p>\n
I say \u201cRalph and Pat\u201d in the way I might refer to a comedy duo. In a way, that\u2019s not too wrong. Funny lines bounced between Ralph and Pat Stadick, sometimes each teeing one up for the other. Both were witty and had eyes that twinkled when bantering back and forth. They played off each other in a George Burns-Gracie Allen style. (If you didn\u2019t grow up with black and white television, you might have to google Burns and Allen.)<\/p>\n
The Stadicks had a long time to hone their act, married 65 years when Ralph passed away in 2016. I got to know them early in my farming life. We were in some of the same farm and community groups. Besides being funny, Ralph and Pat were genuinely kind and caring. When they asked how my young family was doing, they really wanted to know.<\/p>\n
I wouldn\u2019t have known Ralph and Pat in the years before they were married. Of course, they were individuals with their own unique qualities. But most of the time I was with them, they were together. I knew them as a couple; I knew them as \u201cRalph and Pat.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was thinking about people I know mostly as part of a pair. As couples came to mind, I realized I often put the husband\u2019s name first. I think of Mark and Elia and Scott and Judy. I asked Pam, and sure enough she usually thinks of them in reverse order, woman first. Perhaps my habit of husband first a remnant of the \u201cMr. and Mrs.\u201d days?<\/p>\n
When I think of friend-couples we\u2019ve known for a long time, it becomes hard to imagine one without the other. Francis without Rebecca in a way doesn\u2019t make sense. It\u2019s like having one glove or one shoe. They share kids, they share a house, and decades of history. A lot binds them. Most of my conversations with one have been with both.<\/p>\n
Of course, there are people who mostly know me, and there are people who mostly know Pam. For those, our spouse is a name they know in a secondary way, connected to the first. But a lot of friends know us as \u201cPam and Randy.\u201d<\/p>\n
A little of me gets folded into our identity as a couple. Pam\u2019s strengths and weaknesses are stirred into mine, creating a type of batter that is more than the sum of the ingredients. I\u2019m okay with that. Pam softens some of my rough edges, and I hope I round some of hers.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not uncommon for one of a longtime couple to finish the other\u2019s thought. Or at least clarify it. Sometimes if I know I\u2019m going to have trouble retrieving a name, I\u2019ll look at Pam as I move through a story. Since she\u2019s heard that story a hundred times, she can pick it up where needed.<\/p>\n
Making a marriage work, being part of a team, is something I\u2019m proud of. \u201cPam and Randy\u201d has been around for 41 years. But those are in in the past: we need to make our marriage work today and the next. It\u2019s not unlike a long baseball season; yesterday\u2019s box score doesn\u2019t help you today. Ralph and Pat had 65 of these. For them, the season is over, and \u201cthe totals on the scoreboard are correct.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to be pollyannish about this. There are times I\u2019m sure Pam wants to yell, \u201cThat\u2019s him, not me!\u201d The comedy duo of \u201cRandy and Pam\u201d lays an egg sometimes. We\u2019ve had rough patches. No doubt, Ralph and Pat did, too, in decades of farm, family, and health challenges.<\/p>\n
None of this should be taken for granted. Two-person teams break up. All of us know couples who\u2019ve split. Looking back on friends who\u2019ve gone through a divorce, in some of those cases, it made perfect sense. You could see it coming a mile away. For others, it snuck up like a slow arriving cold front. No one can ever really know what\u2019s going on inside of another\u2019s relationship. Sometimes it\u2019s a surprise to those on the outside.<\/p>\n
A few times, we\u2019ve known both parties to a breakup equally well. In some of those, we\u2019ve gotten to hear both sides of a bad story. That\u2019s a painful situation to be in. It makes you think marriage counselors are underpaid. As the saying goes, there are two sides to every story and then the truth.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re at an age where couples \u201cbreak up\u201d for another reason. Time will take one of the partners and the other will go on alone. Some time, hopefully a long time, one of \u201cPam and Randy\u201d will leave the stage and the remaining member of the duo will be left to perform solo.<\/p>\n
We are in a couples-prayer group that began meeting thirty-five years ago. Originally, we were part of an international Catholic organization called Teams of Our Lady. We gather for a meal, prayer, and a lesson based on a chosen reading. In that setting, I know the others almost exclusively as couples. We\u2019ve been together for the raising up and moving out of kids and funerals of parents.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve talked about what it will be like the first time one of us comes to a meeting as a single. It will happen, whatever we think of the idea. The husbands joke with Mike, who is the youngest of the husbands by a little, that he will have to help our wives when we are gone: moving furniture, carrying in softener salt, all that guy stuff.<\/p>\n
Dewy and Karla, Mickey and Minnie, Tim and Lora, Homer and Marge, Wayne and Jackie, Fred and Wilma, Mike and Gigi, Popeye and Olive, Rick and Gwen: couples I\u2019ve known.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My morning routine includes checking the obituaries over coffee. As the comedian Carl Reiner instructed, \u201cEach morning, check the obits to see if you\u2019re listed. If not, eat breakfast.\u201d On a recent morning, there was \u201cPatricia Ann Stadick.\u201d As I do with each name, my mind flipped it around, seeing if I could make a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick"],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-22 04:32:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127975,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127974\/revisions\/127975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}