Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh

My wife, Sherene, and I re­cent­ly trav­elled to Fort Laud­erdale to at­tend a Jour­ney con­cert. We were not sim­ply go­ing to hear a band per­form; we were re­turn­ing to a sound­track that had been play­ing qui­et­ly in the back­ground of our 40-year re­la­tion­ship.

Per­haps that is one of the lessons that comes with grow­ing old­er: hap­pi­ness is not al­ways about ac­quir­ing some­thing new. Some­times, it is about re­vis­it­ing some­thing old and dis­cov­er­ing it still means so much.

When we met in med­ical school in 1983, we could hard­ly have imag­ined all the ex­pe­ri­ences that lay ahead. Over the years, we have changed. Yet, mu­sic has re­mained one of those won­der­ful threads con­nect­ing our past to our present.

Jour­ney’s songs evoke cher­ished mem­o­ries. Open Arms speaks of the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of open­ing one’s heart, Faith­ful­ly cel­e­brates de­vo­tion de­spite life’s de­mands and dis­tances, while Don’t Stop Be­lievin’ re­minds us to hold on to hope amid un­cer­tain­ty.

I do not claim that a rock band kept our mar­riage to­geth­er. That would give mu­sic too much cred­it and mar­riage too lit­tle. A re­la­tion­ship re­quires far more than a favourite song. But mu­sic can be­come a repos­i­to­ry of shared ex­pe­ri­ences. A fa­mil­iar melody can trans­port us to an­oth­er time, re­mind­ing us of who we were and how far we have trav­elled to­geth­er.

A song heard in youth can take on new mean­ing with age. When we were younger, Faith­ful­ly might have sound­ed like a ro­man­tic promise. Af­ter four decades to­geth­er, it can feel like a re­flec­tion on keep­ing that promise. Such is the mag­ic of mu­sic: the melody re­mains, but its mean­ing deep­ens with time.

But Jour­ney has ex­pe­ri­enced its own share of con­flicts. Steve Per­ry’s de­par­ture and suc­ces­sion by Steve Augeri, fol­lowed by Ar­nel Pine­da, il­lus­trate the chal­lenges with­in a band that cre­at­ed songs cel­e­brat­ing love and de­vo­tion.

But per­haps that is the point. Un­der­stand­ing love in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly, ex­press­ing it beau­ti­ful­ly through mu­sic, and sus­tain­ing it in every­day life are three very dif­fer­ent things.

The ten­sions that di­vide a band can al­so be re­flect­ed in mar­riages, fam­i­lies and friend­ships. Dif­fer­ences over mon­ey, recog­ni­tion and pride breed re­sent­ment and erode com­mu­ni­ca­tion. If fame, wealth and suc­cess can­not shield re­la­tion­ships from dis­cord, none of us should as­sume ours are im­mune.

Mar­riage is more than ro­man­tic de­c­la­ra­tions, flow­ers and spe­cial oc­ca­sions. The re­al work of a last­ing re­la­tion­ship is found in the will­ing­ness to lis­ten when one would rather ar­gue, to apol­o­gise when pride makes it dif­fi­cult, to ac­com­mo­date dif­fer­ences and recog­nise that the per­son be­side us is not re­quired to re­main ex­act­ly as we first knew them.

The young peo­ple who met in med­ical school are not the same peo­ple who trav­elled to Fort Laud­erdale. Life has shaped us, chal­lenged us and taught us things no text­book could have ex­plained.

A long mar­riage is not one with­out dif­fi­cul­ties, but one in which two peo­ple keep striv­ing to un­der­stand each oth­er and re­pair what is dam­aged. Longevi­ty alone does not guar­an­tee a healthy re­la­tion­ship; last­ing love re­quires re­spect, com­pas­sion, and mu­tu­al care. Per­haps the great­est dan­ger is tak­ing each oth­er for grant­ed, post­pon­ing the trip, the con­ver­sa­tion or the sim­ple mo­ments to­geth­er, as though to­mor­row were guar­an­teed.

The jour­ney is not a straight line. There are changes in di­rec­tion, un­ex­pect­ed ob­sta­cles, mo­ments of ex­cite­ment and pe­ri­ods of un­cer­tain­ty.

In a mar­riage, the jour­ney is shared, but nei­ther per­son stands still. We grow old­er, our pri­or­i­ties evolve and the world around us changes. The chal­lenge is to keep dis­cov­er­ing the per­son be­side us rather than as­sum­ing that fa­mil­iar­i­ty means we al­ready know every­thing there is to know.

There is a les­son here for younger cou­ples. One I am still learn­ing. Do not wait un­til you are old­er to ap­pre­ci­ate the per­son be­side you. Make time for each oth­er. Cre­ate mem­o­ries. Keep talk­ing. Keep laugh­ing. And when dis­agree­ments arise, re­mem­ber that win­ning an ar­gu­ment may be less im­por­tant than pre­serv­ing a re­la­tion­ship.

Jour­ney’s mu­sic re­minds us to keep be­liev­ing. Its his­to­ry re­minds us that even the strongest bonds can be test­ed. Our own lives re­mind us that love re­quires more than a beau­ti­ful song: it re­quires pa­tience, hu­mil­i­ty, grat­i­tude and com­mit­ment.

And per­haps, at this stage of life, that is the re­al mean­ing of Faith­ful­ly—not that love re­mains un­changed, but that, through all the changes, we con­tin­ue to find our way back to each oth­er.

Some jour­neys are mea­sured in miles. Oth­ers are mea­sured in the years two peo­ple choose to share.