Amy Lu's View

With the start of the Memorial Day Weekend, I’m officially declaring it the kickoff of The Chamy 25th Anniversary Celebration/Commemoration Season. (I’m not sure exactly how long this will last but be prepared for anywhere between 10 days and a year. It probably won’t finally end until we get to take our postponed Anniversary Vacation which is rescheduled for May 2021).

So a heartfelt and hearty “Thank You!” to you–we wouldn’t be celebrating this milestone, or at least not as quite the same couple, without you. Unless you happened to randomly stumble across this and have truly never met or interacted with us before, you’ve played some part in helping us become the people we are today–as individuals, and as a couple.

Don’t worry, we’re not going to blame you for anything bad (at least not too bad!)

In honor of our anniversary, we’re leading a Zoom service on love at our church, Michael Servetus Unitarian Society, on Sunday. To describe the service I shared this as part of my annual pledge testimonial: “More than half of our married life has been spent at MSUS and we wouldn’t be who we are without MSUS. We’re so thankful to still have this space to honor our anniversary, even when all our other plans have gone awry.”

“The Web” is one of our treasured Unitarian Universalist ideas. Thank you to everyone who has supported, inspired, comforted, amused, and put-up with us during the last quarter century, and helped hold us together in the Web. In addition to every thing and every one I am aware of and can remember there are all the little ways the web of existence and the web of community has held us in ways we weren’t even aware of.

I can’t possibly acknowledge and thank everyone, but in addition to our MSUS community, I want to give a shout-out to The Scooby Gang, The Flock, Rubric Legal, Pigeons, Applause Community Theatre, Duck Soup, The Girl Posse, Twin Town Guitars, our NE Minneapolis neighbors, Hennepin County Library, the running community, and our families and parents.

Perhaps you have helped us be Chamy by:

• Drinking, laughing and crying with us (together or individually)
• Making music with us
• Creating plays with us
• Coming out to watch us make music or theater
• Making it possible for us to have an income and meaningful work
• Helping us have a safe and comfortable home and neighborhood
• Listening to us grumble and complain about each other
• Listening to us grumble and complain about life in general so that we sometimes vented to someone besides our spouse
• Listening to numerous inane stories about our domestic life (okay, mostly “my” stories)
• Helping us be our individual selves
• Putting up with our couple schtick (a special nod to those who have been in plays with us)
• You’ve looked at photos (old or newish) that I’ve posted of us on Facebook

As Chad oh so wisely wrote in the sermon he gave when he officiated at our friends’ Megan and Allan’s wedding:

Marriages are both intensely private and joyously public. They are between two people who love each other, but they are also pronouncements to the world that “Hey everybody, we really mean it. Honor our love, support it, and sometimes, if we need it, remind us about it.”

–Chad

Huh, I don’t think I can add to that, so luckily, I don’t have a problem with letting Chad have the last word.