I really enjoyed spending time with my mother-in-law, Patricia (Pat). She was incredibly sweet and a wonderful mother and grandmother. We shared both laughs and quiet conversations during their summer visits from Florida, and we particularly liked to go to the movies.
I remember one in particular. The Bridges of Madison County starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood. You may remember that the plot revolved around Eastwood photographing the Bridges in Madison County when he runs into Streep. Although she is married, they begin a 4-day love affair while her family is out-of-town. Apparently, they really were two soul mates who missed their chance of living a beautiful life together.
Yes, it was romantic, but it felt off to me; very make-believe. How do you know you are soul mates without actually living the “real stuff” together?
As my mind was working through that, we had taken a walk on a new “temporary” bridge in our own town as the county was building a new one. While still on the bridge, I stopped to take a photo of Pat with my father-in-law, Dick. The camera clicked, and so did everything else.
I hurried home and started writing. I wasn’t even sure why as this was long before blogs even existed (!) or even before my free-lance reporting days. But it had to come out. I liked it, but what could I do with it?
I decided to send it to our local newspaper, The Winnetka Talk, as a Letter to the Editor. There was a lot of buzz about the movie, and Pat and Dick had once lived in the area, so maybe there would be interest.
There was. Soon after, Pioneer Press, the umbrella company to maybe 50 other “local editions” ran it as a guest essay in our paper, as well as a few of their other editions in the greater Chicagoland area.
Here’s the piece:
“It was not a covered bridge. It was not a pretty bridge either. But the bridge that spanned the small creek in Northfield closed last week and was demolished.
A foot bridge was built a few yards south of the construction for the residents, and this one is pretty. Made entirely of wood, it arches gracefully around the creek. I photographed my visiting in-laws just last week on that bridge, and I was transformed. Oh my God, I thought. Here I am looking through a camera lens at a couple standing on a bridge. An old-fashioned type of bridge. A story came to me, but it did not include Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. No movie stars here.
No, I began to think about the 55-year marriage of the couple facing me. It was tough. Soon after they married, he was called into the service and left for three years.
She stayed, with a son, and lived with her parents. When he came home, he built them a home in Northfield himself, and worked in a lumber yard. They had another son, and then a daughter, and then another daughter. He built a larger home to support the family. Both parents ran a convenience store that failed when the new supermarket opened across the street.
Her mother died. His mother died. They worked hard to survive and put their sons through college. All four of the children gave them wonderful grandchildren.This is the kind of life the fictional Francesca (Streep) may have shared with her husband, but we don’t know that because that wasn’t “the story.” But I think that was the story. Not the bridge, or the four days of passion, or even the heart-wrenching decision to stay or go.
Francesca and her husband survived infidelity (he never knew, but she did) raised two children, ran a farm and were part of their community. That took strength and love and responsibility. It is a story of survival with bruises and scars and triumphs of living a life together. That is a (way more) interesting story.
I got the pictures developed and maybe Robert Kincaid (Eastwood) would be proud. The bridge is attractive, but 55 years of love and compromise make the better picture, and I don’t care what bridge you are shooting – even if it is in Madison County.”
In that strange moment of confluence, with a movie, bridge construction and my kind mother-in-law visiting, I found the story and unwittingly found a job. Not long after that, Pioneer Press hired me to cover stories on a part-time basis for them. Isn’t that crazy? Then again, maybe not. Maybe it’s just life, and how it works. But I am grateful for Pat for inspiring me to write the story, and open a new life path for me.
And that is only part of our story…
Leavingthedooropen.com 
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