Faith, Friendships Salt Their 40-year Marriage

" When you leave the doors of  the church

                                                               you have to be Christ for others, and how do

                                                              you do that if you don't feed your soul ."

                                          

By Robert R. Schwarz

 

            After an hour of soulful  conversation with Tom and Diane Adam , the unspoken  question was: Is this couple—both aged 66—best defined by an exemplary marriage or their  equally laudable history of  service to their church ?  When Diane, for example, tells you that she and Tom have been  "like best of friends " during their 40-year marriage and then Tom's smile reflects total agreement,  examples are in order.   

Tom and Diane with grandchildren

    " Well, we have much in common,"  began Diane.  Like what ?  " Well,  we're both Catholic ( they hardly ever miss a Sunday mass at St. James in Arlington Heights  ) , we love to take the train to Chicago and see things like the Art Institute—Tom is a great tour guide—we both are the oldest siblings in our families, and we love sports."   

            Her last example is significant, considering they were brought together by a basketball game .  It was a blind date set up by Diane's  best friend a year after Tom and Diane had graduated from Loyola University in Chicago.  The friend had been  a math classmate of  Tom's .  Before the game, Diane overheard Tom ask  her friend, " Do I have to pay for her?"   .  Recalling those words today,   Diane quips, " And he's been paying for it ever since."

            Cupid's dart had previously  landed  a season pass in Diane's hand, and so  she and Tom  together attended all the  home games from November through March. A 2 ½ -year courtship followed , climaxing with  Tom's proposal  one night hours after  the two had seen the movie ," Love Story."   The movie "sort of inspired me ,  " said Tom, who had already asked Diane's father for his daughter's hand .

            In a log cabin  owned by Tom's aunt, the couple honeymooned  for a week  on an island north of Ontario, which they had  reached after a ten-minute motorboat ride captained by Tom. "One bad thing, though, " Diane remembered , " my grandpa died while we were there and we couldn't be reached. "

            Our interview took place in the Adams modest one-floor home on Arlington Heights'  east side.  With its plethora of family photos and Yule decorations—and a live Christmas tree which Tom would later be carrying in—the home in which the Adams have lived for 38 years cast a spirit of cheerfulness  and solidarity.   Diane , a brunette with just a front touch of gray —" but not a touch of dye," she asserted—did most of the talking .  Tom, weighing in at 260 pounds and standing six-foot-five ,  has retained  an athlete's physique . He has a full head of white hair, short and flattened, and brown eyes with a bit of a twinkle in them. He doesn't easily conjure up  the image of the high school math teacher he was for 36 years.

            Marital spats?  " We have squabbles, "  Diane said, " but we don't hold them in and we get it over them.  After we both retired, friends would ask, 'how can you two stand each other's company all the time?'  I would reply, 'we're not always together.  We do have separate interests. ' "      

            When asked for their advice for other married couples or newlyweds,  Tom  thought for a long moment, then simply said, " Be thoughtful and respectful of your spouse ,  and that carries over into all kinds of things. "  Then it  was Diana's turn: " If someone angers you, talk things out , and maybe there's a simple solution.   That's what I tell my daughters . You are sinning against yourself if you're holding in all that anger. "
            She also attributed their successful marriage to the love both their parents displayed to each other and to other people.  " And like Fr. Bill ( the St. James pastor ) said ,  surround yourself with people whose marriages are strong.  We have eight couples from St.  James who are our friends and we do things to help each other. "

            How they share  recreation also keeps their marriage strong, the Adams  indicated.  Together they   have been attending shows at the Metropolis Center in downtown Arlington Heights since  it opened  in 2000 . They are contributing founders of it. Besides their trips to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Adams have fun at the Botanic Gardens, the Morton Arboretum, and the nearby Forest Preserves ,  where they love to hike with their grandchildren.   They  frolicked at a neighborhood progressive dinner party this Christmas and with  friends on  New Year's Eve. Their party agenda includes  Valentine's Day later this year.  Both delighted in seeing the move "Lincoln. "

 Tom is reading the   book The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys.

' God Will Never Give You More than You Can Handle'

            The seemingly endless  list of church volunteer efforts which the Adams have made over the past 25 years was perhaps best summed up by Cardinal George and his bishops last November  4   when Diane and Tom were bestowed with the Christifideles  Award at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago.  The annual award is for Catholic laity who have , by participating in parish life, demonstrated the personal and ministerial renewal called for by the papal exhortation, Christifideles Laici,  Faithful to Christ in Service.  "Both [ the Adams  ] have devoted themselves to making sure that Sunday Mass continues to be a first class celebration ," it was stated at the ceremony.  For more than 20 years, Tom and Diane have been in charge of the training and formation of the  240 St. James students and adults  who make up the church's Eucharistic Minister team.   From Oktoberfest and bingo, to PADS and  small group Bible study, the Adams  have left their mark.   

            Their motivation?   " I really think it's been the Holy Spirit, " Diane said. She believes that her church volunteering went into high gear when one of  Tom's sisters had a baby out of wedlock and Diane began caring for mother and child.   At the same time and unaware of her sister's  situation,  St. James asked  Diane if she would help with its new  ministry of supporting unplanned pregnancies.  "That was the Holy Spirit working," she said.

            For Tom, the spirit of helping others began when he was an altar boy. "I think I got in the habit of helping and offering to do things," he said .  

            Both maintain that neither of them has ever been overwhelmed by all this volunteering .  "It's  Christ's example of how He cared for people… and [ the apostle ] Paul said  God will never give you more than you can handle,  "  Tom explained. Fortunately, both Adams have enjoyed good health throughout their marriage. 

            When asked what in  their lives has seriously challenged them,  Tom and Diane singled out the times when  Diane's parents were hospitalized before their deaths.  Her father had had a stroke, and  the Adams then had two young daughters.  "Diane was being pulled in all directions, " Tom said. " She was real good about taking care of all of us , like driving into Chicago to see her hospitalized parents and then coming home for her family  responsibilities  . I was always amazed at how well she handled all this. "  Again, Tom praised the value of good friends:  " What helped us through this was that our best friends were  from St. James. "  During this stressful time, Diane also credited their  fortitude to her woman's support group and to  friends she and Tom had made during their weekend retreat with CRHP ( Christ Renews His Parish ).

            " We do have a lot of responsibilities with our siblings, " mentioned Diane, who is the oldest of seven living brothers and sisters. "I have a brother who is  20 years younger than I am. We've raised him more as a son than a brother. " Tom is the oldest of eight siblings. His mother is 90.   The Adams daughters are Karrie, 39, who is employed by the  Arlington Heights Park District, and Julie, 36, an administrative employee of  High School District 214. Both are St. James members.

            The birth of their daughters  and  grandchildren Tom considers as the major milestones in his life. " When he retired " Diane said, " he said he was retiring to take care of his little granddaughter, and he's been taking care of her and the others ever since. "  Then she  mentioned  her husband's pride in his 36-year teaching career  during which he often coached his math students at night.

            Our conversation turned to more of the Adams' spiritual values. " Sunday mass has always been the focal point of  our lives, " Diane said.  She has been  coordinating a series of Sunday church bulletin articles entitled—"What the Eucharist Means to Me"—written by parish members . She and Tom  currently study the Bible with a small group led by Sr. Joanne Grib. " When you leave the doors of  the church you have to be Christ for others, and how do you do that if you don't feed your soul," she exclaimed.

            Tom's faith, he said, is fed by "the reinforcement on a regular basis  of Christ's message that  you hear at mass and when you work with others. "  He added: "This leads the way ."

            The night of our interview , Diane attended  a special St. James  meeting with about 150 members to advise  their  bishop and other  archdiocese clergy  of the   attributes they wanted in the pastor who will replace Fr. Bill  when he retires in July. Diane wants the new pastor to be a good administrator like Fr. Bill,  "someone who challenges us and does great homilies ."  She also hopes the new priest would not be a meek person and that he be a "people person." 

            But what  Tom and Diane want most for St. James, however, is to see many more people in the pews on Sunday. Many stopped going to church a few years ago, she  claimed, when the major fund raising campaign began to construct a new grade school. To encourage more "lapsed"  Catholics to return to St. James, the Adams are conducting periodic one-hour  tours of the church . "Maybe [ after the tour ]  they will realize the importance of their church if they understand it better," Diane said.

            And what  might Diane and Tom want  people to say about them after the Lord calls home this married couple ?  "That she was a loving woman,"  Diane said .  And Tom?  "He was a loving husband, father, and grandfather, he said. "

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                                                                                        rrschwarz7@wowway.com                                                                                                            

© 2012, 2013  Robert R. Schwarz