Should We Marry

Friendship

Tim, in his middle thirties, has worked as a funeral director since graduation from school and the subsequent apprenticeship. Personable, sensitive, and proficient, he is well liked by the local clergy and highly respected by his professional colleagues.

After the typical career start-up as a full-time employee at an established home and part-time work assisting other directors, Tim launched his own funeral business in a small village. Building up the necessary clientele to provide sufficient “calls” for a financially stable venture of this type is a slow process. He thus needed and still needs to augment his income by a substantial amount of freelance service for other funeral directors.

His funeral home sponsors an area softball team, and one night he joined the players with their friends for a post-game celebration at a popular local emporium. That evening event changed the direction of Tim’s life.

He met Clare there, ten years younger and a graduate student at the local university hoping to become an elementary school teacher. Smitten, but shy and cautious, Tim asked if she might like to earn some spending money by occasionally cleaning his funeral home.

Clare agreed, and at the end of her first Saturday working for him, Tim nervously made an offer: “Would you like to go out for something to eat?” The student, would-be teacher, cleaning woman responded positively, and their meal together seemed to go well. However, Clare failed to telephone him during the next week. Tim, having known some rejections in the past, felt downcast, assuming she had no interest in developing more than a working relationship.

But eventually Clare surprised him with a follow-up call, suggesting that they do a repeat of the work/dinner scenario because she enjoyed the last experience very much.

Tim’s spirits naturally soared. Those combination connections then became a regular occurrence and the relationship grew. Three years later Tim and Clare were at their parish church arranging a wedding date.

After about twenty minutes of informal and light conversation with the clergyman about their work and their initial encounter, about the courtship and the forthcoming marriage, the priest posed this question to Clare: “So you want to marry Tim—why him?”

She blushed a little, but then replied: “We are best friends. I can tell him anything. He is always there for me now, and I know he will be there for me in the future. But above all Tim is a very caring, unselfish person, always thinking of others and concerned about them, both in his professional work and in his personal life.”

Tim could sense that the spotlight would soon switch to him, and thus he was not surprised when the priest gently inquired: “Why Clare?”