TRAVERSE CITY, MI —Romance, certainly the most elemental energy we know, flows like human life itself. Its headwaters charge off the slopes of new love, adventurous, boiling, unstoppable. Further along, the currents of romance grow powerful and certain. The way ahead, after all, promises eddies of delight and shoals of distress. There is no way around that. Those fortunate to have married the right partner know that marriage is the sacred pact that ties two people to romance, to the love of life, to the certainty that the journey is much better made together.
On Saturday, October 6, 2018, two people that I know well and love immensely committed themselves to lifelong romance. Mara Bates, my daughter, a delightful woman raised in Benzonia, Michigan married Brandon Rushton, a thoughtful man raised in Clio, Michigan. She is a hotel management executive in Charleston, South Carolina now. He is a poet who teaches at the College of Charleston. Their romance was kindled during a college spring break trip to Florida. That was over eight years ago. They have been together ever since.
It is a good union. Mara is a strong woman, capable, intelligent, beautiful, and ambitious — especially for the relationships she cultivates with the tight circle of family and friends that she keeps close. Those assets translate well to her work in the lodging industry. Mara’s emotional depth and compassion shows itself in her steadiness, her perceptiveness, her instinct for making good choices. Her friends and her family know well those traits. Now they are admired by Mara’s professional colleagues. She is, in short, a formidable leader — hard to rattle and easy to love. They are such distinctive qualities that Mara’s teachers at Benzie Central High School honored her with a citizenship award when she was 15 years old. It was like being named her school’s MVP.
Brandon, too, is a person of depth and intelligence and ambition. Outwardly, he’s a Michigan man — quiet, polite, self-effacing. Inside, though, Brandon is a keenly perceptive observer of the artifacts of contemporary America that make this an age of bile and blasphemy. A slim and handsome young man, an only son raised near Saginaw in the bosom of a stable and loving family, Brandon nevertheless writes like a street beggar with a sore foot. He sees the world through what he calls “tears and tissues.” Random fortune is “like the dividend of distance in quarters tossed at the toll booth.”
Brandon wrote “Love Poem in the Age of Limited Atmosphere, for Mara” to celebrate his marriage. It was read as the clouds began to clear, just before he slipped the ring on his wife’s finger. Here is how it concludes: “Perhaps it’s all some trick. Mercury lamps losing what little shine they have left so we’re just two people in the dark who get to go on dreaming. Who knows. Somewhere near the end, the archaeobiologists suggest our bodies will become an array of chemicals and corn syrup, some bio-hazardous history of breath. I’ll have a hard time believing what I was made of wasn’t you.”
On October 6, 2018 a man who cares that deeply wed a sure-footed woman who understands the pulse and power of love. Mara and Brandon are sure to enjoy a long and spiritually prosperous life as partners. That is the essence of romance. They are blessed to understand it.
— Keith Schneider
Excellent portrayal, Keith! Kudos to these two newlyweds! Much joy and happiness to them!
Such a beautiful capturing of this wonderful day. Congratulations to Mara and Brandon and the Bates family. Thanks for sharing these photos and commentary on love’ a power.