In my life there have been two major influences that have opened love's door for me. The first and dearest, the one that fills me with passion and completeness with each breath she takes is my wife. The other has been the couple of Marc Edwards and Dennis Haddock - forever thought of as Marc and Den. To me, Marc and Den were the definition of love. They are both gone now. That is to say, they are both together again.
I want to tell the tale of how Marc and Den met. I apologize in advance for how clumsily I do it. The true sweetness of it could only be achieved by listening to Marc tell their story. Each time I heard it, the breath would go out of Marc's voice, his eyes would darken passionately with the memory of it, and you could tell just a few sentences in that he was no longer talking so much as reliving the moment. At the time of their meeting it was the eighties and Marc worked at the West Bank Club in Chicago as Catering Manager. Dennis showed up to the Club one day to interview for a job. For Marc it was love at first sight as something inside him melted away, and he could barely speak. So paralyzed was he by this first meeting with Dennis, that he had to run and get his assistant asking her to do the interview because he just couldn't think straight around Dennis.
That random stroke of lightening ignited something that would not stop burning. After some time, Marc and Den moved to Colorado Springs where we would join their lives. Jean-Marie met them long before meeting me. Marc was a partner in the very successful Food Designers catering company and Dennis was working at the Antlers Hotel when my wife was well on her way to being one of the best wedding and special events florists in town. As happens with Marc and Den, their friendship with Jean-Marie quickly deepened. So when I started dating my future wife, Marc and Den had us over to dinner to size me up. That part I did not know. What I did know was that the food would likely be exotic and spectacular because of Marc's line of work. I remember that night sitting in their lovely candlelit dining room sharing wine and conversation with a meal of pot roast and steamed broccoli. Perfect. I had a wonderful time, and only found out much later that the initial impression I rated was a lukewarm, "He's ok, but we just don't see it, J-M." Luckily for me, Marc and Den gave second chances.
Over the years, Jean-Marie and I shared many meals, parties, and vacations with Marc and Den. When Marc and Den were planning to simplify their lives and were plotting their exit strategy from Colorado Springs, Jean-Marie and I joined them on trips to Charleston and Savannah to help them decide where they wanted to live. Though they ended up in my beloved Charleston, the Savannah trip held the most memories for me. Images from the trip bring easy smiles: Dennis poking fun at me when we were at a bar and the barman kept "checking" me out, Dennis and I napping in the backseat of the car from the airport to the hotel (time often found Dennis and I napping), Marc hungover in the back of the convertible parked in the Southern Summer sun as the rest of us visited a garden shop (Den parked in the sun on purpose because he was miffed that Marc drank so much the night before). The sweetest memory of that trip came late one night at the hotel. Jean-Marie left the room to get ice and ran into Marc and Dennis kissing in the hall. Marc and Den were so embarrassed at getting caught! She wasn't, and I wouldn't have been. I loved how Jean-Marie giggled when she told me what happened. Marc and Den were married and been together a lot of years at that point, and to still show that passion and youthful innocence about their love was simply beautiful.
Marc and Den were so adaptable as a couple. Charleston and semi-retirement did not go as planned when Marc did not realize the money out of his business that he had expected. Still they spent their first year in a beach house as promised, then hit the ground running. They found jobs and fell in love with the city. Dennis went about tending gardens, first at a church, then at a garden center, and finally the lush grounds of the stately College of Charleston. Marc worked briefly in a flower shop before moving back into work where he could make a difference. This started with Camp Happy Days where he was Director of Development for a cancer camp for children. From there he moved onto Senior Director of Development at the Charleston Animal Society (how he prevented Den from adopting all of animals himself I will never know). It was while there that Den was diagnosed with lung cancer, and Marc's world was turned on its head. It was so painful to see what Den's illness did to Marc. It was also an honor to witness how Marc's love allowed Marc to push through all his own anguish and pain to tenderly guide Den through the maze of treatments and provide Den the gentle daily care he required.
After Dennis died, Marc's friends and family rallied around him, but he was inconsolable. There was a light in him that passed along with Den. Eventually Marc re-entered the land of the living even if ghost-like. As best he could, he returned to the friends he loved as counselor, advocate, and port because that is who he was. He moved from the Charleston Animal Society to Low Country AIDS Services, where he could more directly help that neglected community. He would talk often to our children and our grandson. Jean-Marie would call him regularly and they would talk about hurts and joys, and sometimes nothing at all just hear each other's voice. I would hop on the phone with him (though I am horrible on the phone), and we would joke and we would laugh. I wish I could hear that laugh again. We would also see him as often we could.
The last time we were with him was over Thanksgiving just this past year. One day we were in the kitchen cooking, drinking, and listening to a CD of Marc at his first cabaret recital. There we were with the beautiful voice of Marc singing the standards in the background of our conversation and something hit me. I turned to Marc and said to him that I did not know how he could have performed without breaking down, because what we were listening to was simply a love letter to Dennis. Marc just shrugged, eyes wet with held back tears.
Not long after that visit, Marc's broken heart caught up to him. He completed the greatest love story I am likely to know when he rejoined Dennis. Both Marc and Den did many fine and noble things in their lives. They were leaders in the community, they were strong shoulders in weak times, they were an example for us all. More than anything else that I learned from them or shared with them, how they so openly defined love with both passion and innocence is what I will cherish the most, and will forever pay forward.
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