How Did Covid-19 Affect Your Most Significant Relationship? A Birthday Reflection for Jeanne

Last updated on: June 9, 2021 at 6:00 am by Vance Morgan

How Did Covid-19 Affect Your Most Significant Relationship? A Birthday Reflection for Jeanne 2021-06-07T16:40:43-04:00 Vance Morgan

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Over the past year, I have read and heard reports of marriages either on the rocks or completely falling apart. The reason? Covid-19 seclusion. A colleague told me that the legal system in China was overwhelmed with divorce petitions once things opened up over there–I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar is happening on this side of the world as well.

Why? Because once they were forced to be in each other’s presence 24/7 for a year or more, many married couples realized that this really isn’t the person they want to be with after all. It’s easy to overlook annoyances and shortcomings when you only see each other for 2-3 hours per day (or less). Far more difficult to do so when there is no escape.

I’ve said frequently over the past sixteen months that Jeanne and I have come through Covid-19 better than most for several reasons. We both have excellent jobs and did not miss an hour of work due to the pandemic. We have no older relatives in nursing homes whom we could not visit (we ARE the older relatives, for the most part). We are both healthy as horses. But most significantly, not only do we love each other, but–more importantly–we like each other. The pandemic didn’t change much there, because we are used to spending tons of time together and enjoying it.

Today is Jeanne’s birthday. I annually post something celebratory on June 9th; today it’s a retooling of what I wrote two years ago. Enjoy, and help me celebrate her birthday!

Last week Jeanne and I went with a friend to see the Elton John biopic “Rocketman.” You should see it if you haven’t—well worth your time. No spoilers here, except to say that if you love Sir Elton’s music as I do, you’ll love the movie. I’ve been an Elton-o-phile for many years; a few years ago, Jeanne got me a ticket to an Elton John concert here in Providence the day after he celebrated his 60th birthday. His “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” album came out during my senior year in high school; I loved it so much that, in short order, I not only purchased it, but also bought the four or five albums he had released prior to the blockbuster double album.

One of these early albums is titled simply “Elton John,” his second LP release from 1970. It begins with two love songs, the first of which is “Your Song,” Elton’s first megahit single. In “Rocketman,” it is the song that finally hooks a resistant record label manager, who calls it “the best thing I’ve heard since ‘Let It Be.’” It is indeed beautiful, but it’s the second, less known love song on the album, “I Need You To Turn To,” that is my favorite Sir Elton song of all time. Simple, elegant, guaranteed to give me chills every time I hear it.

You’re not a ship to carry my life
You are nailed to my love in many lonely nights
I’ve strayed from the cottages and found myself here
For I need your love, your love protects my fears
And I wonder sometimes and I know I’m unkind
But I need you to turn to when I act so blind
And I need you to turn to when I lose control
You’re my guardian angel who keeps out the cold
Did you paint your smile on, well I said I knew
That my reason for living was for loving you
We’re related in feeling, but you’re high above
You’re pure and you’re gentle with the grace of a dove

Elton John was my dorm room soundtrack during my first two years at college 2500 miles away from home. After Christmas of my freshman year, I was engaged to be married; my fiancée and I had been a couple since our junior year in high school. Underneath my extreme introversion and cerebral energies, I am a romantic at heart—I used to get chills and sometimes even a tear in my eye when I listened to “I Need You to Turn To”—but I knew it was not about my fiancée. I found myself wondering if there would ever be anyone in my life who matched Bernie Taupin’s lyrics—and I knew it wasn’t my fiancée. We had been good friends since seventh grade, both of our families and everyone at our church expected us to get married once we started officially dating in high school, but this song wasn’t about her. And she would have said that this song was not about me from her perspective. We got married between my sophomore and junior years in college.

We both should have paid attention to our hearts. Fast forward eleven years, six months after my divorce. My parents invited me to come, with my two young sons, to their place for Thanksgiving. And, oh yeah—they were inviting their friend Jeanne for the holiday as well. I had heard about Jeanne before—my parents had known her for a number of years. When she came up in conversation, my mother always mentioned her beautiful singing voice and her beautiful red hair.

Jeanne and I had even talked on the phone once a couple of years earlier, when she called me out of the blue just to tell me that she had been accepted into the master’s program at St. John’s College, where I had done my bachelor’s degree in the seventies (and where I had listened to Elton John in my dorm room). Jeanne only knew about St. John’s because my parents had spoken of it in glowing terms based on my experience. She thought—correctly—that only someone who had been there would know how big of a deal it was to get into St. John’s. So now this person, whom I knew only through second-hand stories from my mother and a voice on the phone, was going to be at my parents’ place for Thanksgiving. I’m not big on meeting new people, but figured this was safe because I would have my parents as a buffer.

Those few days over Thanksgiving changed several lives. Although the last thing I was looking for was a relationship six months after my divorce had ended eleven years of unhappy marriage, it was immediately clear that there was something going on between the two of us. On Thanksgiving morning, I sat on the sofa in the small living room of my parents’ condo observing Jeanne chatting with my mother who was puttering around in her little kitchen. Leaning with her back up against the wall as she talked, Jeanne struck a seductive pose (or so it seemed to me), and I realized that, for the first time in my life, I was falling in love. A few days later, I inexplicably had tears in my eyes as I started the long drive home. In some deep place I knew I was driving away from my soul mate. But after a month of nightly phone calls of more than an hour each, she joined me for Christmas and we were together for good.

That was a bit over thirty-three-and-a-half years ago. Today is Jeanne’s birthday, an event worth celebrating on many levels. Seeing “Rocketman” last weekend stirred up a bunch of decades-old, pre-Jeanne memories, including how “I Need You to Turn To” used to affect me. I knew forty-seven years ago that this song was describing something I had never experienced and someone that I had never met, but deeply longed for. There was no guarantee that I would ever meet the person Elton is singing about in this song. But something stirred inside me at my parents’ condo that Thanksgiving Day in 1987 as I observed Jeanne talking with my mother—something that “I Need You to Turn To” had told me about many years earlier. There she was, my guardian angel who keeps out the cold.

Happy birthday, my dear. I love you.

Previous Post

June 7, 2021

Everything Does Not Happen for a Reason

Next Post

June 10, 2021 What Do You Do When the Well Runs Dry?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Advent AI Angels Artificial intelligence atheism attention baptism Baptists beauty belief Benedictines Bible bicycling Big Bird books Bovina Camaldoli hermitage Canada Catholicism cats certainty change Christianity Christmas Collegeville Covid-19 creativity Development of Western Civilization dogs doubt Easter Enneagram Epiphany Episcopal ethics Eucharist evil extroverts Facebook faith family fear flowers forgiveness freedom friends God goodness grace happiness heaven hell history Holy Spirit Holy Week hope human nature humility humor idolatry incarnation introverts irreverence Islam Jeanne Jesus Joe Biden joy Judaism justice Kamala Harris knowledge Lent listen literature liturgy love Marsue Memorial Day miracles movies music mystery mythology NPR Old Testament optimism paradox peace Penguins philosophy piano podcast politics power prayer Protestantism Providence College Religion Rhode Island sabbatical sacrament science seeing silence Simone Weil Socrates soul sports St. John's College stories suffering tattoo teaching technology television theology thinking time tolerance transcendence travel trees trust truth Uncategorized Vermont wisdom wonder writing

Select a Month May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz