Yesterday Sharon and I attended a celebration of life for the father of a friend of ours. The eulogies were lovingly inspirational and painted pictures of a truly remarkable man. Remarkable as a scholar, a professor, author, athlete, progressive thinker and father. 

My friend had prerecorded herself reading the letter her dad had sent to the members of his Jewish family in the 1950’s announcing his intention of marriage to an African American woman and his hope that the family will accept her as readily as anyone else. 

The power of his (and her) “damn the torpedoes” attitude in the age of McCarthyism was brave and admirable and got me to thinking about other marriages of people I know or knew from diverse backgrounds. 

Today is the third anniversary of the death of my father in law. After attending the celebration of life, we went and laid flowers on my father in law’s grave. My father in law was a man whose love for a woman crossed the huge racial divide as well. A Sikh man in love with a white Welsh woman in Birmingham was a radical and sometimes dangerous departure from the norm. 

My thoughts turned next to my late friend, a prominent Jazz musician,  who met his future wife in rural Quebec (also in the 1950’s). Constance was forced to choose between him and her own family. Her heart won out and eventually her family softened and accepted him and the grand children their marriage produced. 

I think of the hundreds of mixed marriages of famous musicians in the fifties and sixties that used to raise eyebrows and controversy and overt racist difficulties. 

Venus and Mars are the usual barriers in marriage, but throwing in the cultural biases and visible otherness required other skills and strengths that I can only imagine. 

Times have changed. Or have they? In my own immediate family my siblings all married people although not visibly different, from outside the expected, My older brother’s father in law had been a doctor in the Luftwaffe. My dad flew for the RCAF. My sister married an American, Catholic divorcée. Three strikes according to my grandfather who declined to attend their wedding. My younger brother married an American as well whose family is Jewish. My first marriage was to someone from the same town, same background, same denomination as mine. Worked for a while and then didn’t. My second marriage is to a woman born in India with mixed Indian and Welsh heritage. Sharon was accepted easily into the fold, as was I into her family.

The mild, insignificant to nonexistent misgivings to each of our unions is in sharp contrast to the obstacles overcome by the pioneers of the fifties. 

The next generation in my extended family have an even more diverse and seemingly normalized differences. I have nephews and nieces from the US, Cuba, Mexico, Rwanda, Brazil. We have gay and trans family members breaking their own barriers bravely. 

Despite the severe downturn in civility and tolerance the world is experiencing at present,  Our families are maintaining a progressive trend. The unions that once would have been considered daring and counter culture are now commonplace and unremarkable. 

We need to maintain vigilance over society’s regression and maintain our own core values (mine are aligned with Dr. King) and wrestle the Shire back from the Orcs.

Sid and Doris, Paul and Jennie, Charlie and Connie I salute you.