A reader compliments Matt and Rose Lamb on their many years together as husband and wife.

Matt responds:

Thank you for your kind words.

There are many friends of ours who are absolutely convinced that Rose will not die; she will assumed directly into heaven for putting up with me for all these years.

It’s been a great, great adventure.  We constantly say we never know where we’re going; we know where we’ve been; we’re not so sure why sometimes.

The older we get, the more adventures we seem to have in front of us, not behind us.  In earlier days, we always felt you reached certain pinacles, and that everything else would be less.  Now we’ve come to the conclusion that there aren’t any pinacles; it just is what it is; and it seems to get better and better and better.

In my old age, I’ve come to not dread the final act as much, because I think it’s going to be the greatest show on earth.

Back in the late part of 2008, Rose and I went to see Porgy and Bess, the opera by George Gershwin.  I didn’t know the story.  I do now.  I said to Rose, “It reminds me of my funeral director days...  There's a little bit too much gloom and doom in it for my current mindset.”

The cast, the acting, the singing, the costumes were all excellent.  But the story was one of loneliness, love, lost love, and then the search again for another partner.

And it seemed to me that the story itself was virtually the same as La Boheme, which always leaves me uplifted.  But for some reason, I was in a downer mood after seeing Porgy and Bess.  I was probably the only one in the theater who felt that way, as we were all on our feet afterwards, applauding and carrying on.

I don’t know what that means.  It’s probably part of how we all look at the same thing but see something different.  Probably I’m looking at music the same way I look at art.  Probably, at my advanced age, I’ve learned something about myself and how I perceive the world.

I find that a great accomplishment:  to learn something new when I really wasn’t thinking I was going to.

Thank you for your comment, and onward and upward—keep your eyes open and your mouth closed! 

Matt