LuJoe

Romeo and Juliet.  Napoleon and Josephine.  The Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  I only have to mention these three couples and you’ll instantly know I’m thinking about legendary love stories.  These names, inextricably linked together, have gone down through the ages as bywords of passion and devotion.

Countless plays, books and movies have limned their love.  And we lesser mortals, not equally as blessed by Eros and/or Fate, can only be mere spectators.  This rarest of human conditions can only be admired from afar. Like the Monarchy, it’s probably best not to let too much daylight intrude upon the magic.

I have seen only one couple that I think should be added to this list.  Joseph and Lucille, my sister-in-law’s grandparents.  (I put his name first because tradition has it that the man’s name leads off.  This might be hierarchy.  This might just be poetry.  But try reversing the names at the top of this post and you’ll see what I mean.)

But because it was always “ladies first” with Joseph, they coined a name for themselves that gave her top billing.  LuJoe.  And she ended every missive and thank you note I ever got with this special sign-off. It symbolized, of course, that they were one entity.  Two people sharing the same heart.

And they did.

I don’t remember when I first met Mary Lu’s grandparents.  I know that I met Mary Lu back in early 1970 when she and my brother began dating.  On their second or third date, my teenaged brother showed up at my Astor Street apartment on a Satuday night and said, “This is Sam, this is Lori, this is Mary Lu.  Get out.”

And so I did.  Thus I have known her for forty-three years and I’m sure I must have met her grandparents very early on. They were doting, devoted and Mary Lu and her three younger brothers spent a lot of time with them.  And, as she and I became friends ourselves, I was bound to run into them at her house.

This came as no big surprise to me- having the same kind of maternal grandparents myself.  When we were growing up, our family spent every Sunday with my mother’s parents and my mom’s sister- and her family- as a matter of course.

(Btw, I thought everybody had the same wonderful kind of grandparents- especially grandmothers- that I did.  I can recall how shocked I was when a high school beau flatly declared to me that his grandmother was a mean, old b-word, and that no one in his family liked her.  I didn’t even know that was possible.)

Lucille and Joseph, in those days, did not strike me as anything but a handsome older couple who were kind and generous to all and sundry.  No more no less.  But I was still just a kid of nineteen myself. It would take many close encounters and years of observation- along with the maturity and insights these years bring-  to make me understand just what rare thing I was witnessing whenever I was privileged to be with them.

I didn’t have long to wait.  In 1975, newly-back from Baltimore, I was invited to join the rest of my family at their apartment for Thanksgiving dinner.  I was coming stag, having just met my new boyfriend only two weeks before.  (And who had just proposed to me earlier in the week.)

His unexpected entry into my love life hadn’t entitled him to a last-minute Thanksgiving dinner invitation, but it did mean that he was going to stop over after the meal to meet my entire family at one fell swoop.  That Thanksgiving was a memorable one- for several reasons.

Joseph was an important man.  How important?  Well, he’d never tell you.  That’s for darn sure.  Beautifully brought-up, with impeccable manners and the skills of the diplomat he was born to be, he was always modest and self-effacing.  But he was a captain of industry, a key player on the world industrial stage, and a major philanthropist here in Chicago.

He had been on the cover of Time and Forbes.  He had schools and boats named for him.  He commissioned one of the first post-war skyscrapers to go up in the downtown Loop, building an award-winning landmark and revitalizing the area at the same time.  And his obituary- when he peacefully passed away at ninety after a Bears game one Sunday night- was in Time magazine.  That’s impressive, folks.  I will probably never know another person of whom that can be said.

And some of the telegrams he casually read out at his holiday dinner table confirmed this.  He and Lucille got “Happy Thanksgiving” wishes from the President, for pete’s sake.

After dinner, Lucille and my mother hovered by a window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the guy they already knew was going to play an important role in my life.  I remember them waiting for him like two giggling schoolgirls.

Finally Lucille spotted him streetside. “There’s a handsome man down there,” she announced.  “That must be him.”

I started to get ready for the big introduction.

Alas, it was a false alarm.  It was only Mike, her very own son-in-law, who had gone out earlier to retrieve something from his car.  I relaxed.

But then she signalled that a new contender had been sighted.  And it was indeed, Bill, who did, in fact, meet my whole group at one go.  Quite a remarkable evening all ’round.

Back to Lucille.  What you noticed, of course, was her beauty.  In 1975 she would have been seventy-three years old, and it was still the first thing that struck you.  Regal carriage, beautiful slim figure, turned out of a bandbox, silver-haired by then, and eyes of cornflower blue.  She was a knockout for any age. Gracious, elegant, with charm to spare, she was of the old school, too.

It was easy to see why Joe adored her.  And she him.  To marry her, he had left Cornell and joined the family firm.  His employment was his father’s condition placed upon their  wedding.

And he treated her like a queen.  She reciprocated his feelings and put him on an equally-lofty pedestal. They had a world of their own.  They didn’t trumpet it or boast or try to prove how much they adored each other. Married for sixty-eight years, it stood the test of time.  It was just the real deal.  A true love match.

Two things I shall always remember about them as individuals:

Him.  They were hosting a rather large party, and at the last minute, my son Nick had come down with something and had to stay at home.  He must have been all of seven or eight at the time.  It was nothing too serious and so we made his apologies.

But when Joseph lifted his glass to toast and thank those of us who were in attendance, he ended his salute by saying,”And let us not forget the ones who could not be here tonight. We wish him a speedy recovery and we miss him.  Here’s to Nicky.”

My eight year old was remembered this way.  I will NEVER forget how I felt.  I had just witnessed the very definition of diplomacy in action.

Her.  Whenever I saw her, she would extend both hands to me in a welcoming gesture.  As I approached her, I always saw the same, quick little flick of her eyes, looking me up and down from head to toe.  The once-over.  Then her beautiful smile would widen and her sapphire eyes were sparkle even more, and she’d give a little nod.  I had just been inspected and luckily for me, I always passed.  Just being around her made me want to look and be at my very best.

She died when she was just shy of her hundredth birthday.  And I never once saw her look anything but perfect herself.  She had high standards- but she held herself to the highest.  What a lovely advertisement for aging gracefully.

Long before there was Bennifer or TomKat or Brangelina, there was LuJoe.

Their romance was an inspiration and I was honored to have known them.

Love, ElRo