Sarah McCoy, author of the novel The Mapmaker's Children, and her husband, an Army orthopedic surgeon she calls Doc B, recently celebrated their 10-year wedding anniversary with a vow renewal and baptismal ceremony. I talked with McCoy about this beautiful ceremony and some secrets to making young love last.
Doc B is your high school sweetheart; could you share how you met and managed to stick together?Doc B moved to my high school his junior year. Both of our fathers were Army officers stationed at the Pentagon. Fairfax County, Virginia, is a hotbed for military transfers, so I didn't immediately notice him until our senior year.
One day at school, my best friend and I were tardy on account of a Starbucks' Mocha Frappuccino that took a minute too long to get its frippery. Doc B happened to be tardy that morning, too. He caught my eye on our quiet walk of shame to class. I asked my best friend who the cute, new soccer player was, and the rest is history.
First and foremost, Doc B has always been my best friend. I think that's key to any relationship sticking. We broke up and dated other people during college. The best friendship remained. In fact, I'd say it grew stronger during that time without romantic tethers. Our respect for each other as individuals developed. We championed each other's education goals and bemoaned each other's dating disasters. The pressure was off to be all the stereotypes of a girlfriend/boyfriend. We chose to be each other's truest confidantes. When we finally got back together after college, we knew it was going to result in marriage.
What made you decide to mark this anniversary in such a romantic and moving way?
It was 10 years -- a decade of marriage, a milestone number. In today's romance-rules-the-roost society, it's sad to see so many couples (friends and strangers) come to a point where they say, "I don't feel the spark anymore so this must be over."
For us, the romantic beginning was just the spark to a life-long fire we continue to work on. It's a choice -- a commitment to fanning the flames, foraging for kindle to keep it burning, watching it carefully so it doesn't get out of control while keeping the coals smoldering. It's a work of love, a trial, and a marvel. Respecting it as such is equally important.
So Doc B and I renewed our vows to each other to remember the choice we made 10 years ago, to reaffirm it today, and then to be baptized together as we embark on the decades ahead.
What prompted the decision to also add a baptism? What role does faith play in your union?
One of the most significant aspects of marriage is forming your own family unit apart from your parents and siblings. 'Leaving and cleaving,' as they say. I come from a family deeply rooted in spiritual faith. Doc B grew up in an agnostic one. To use the common vernacular, we two came together in one holy matrimony, forming a unique, new model and defining our family according to the doctrines we believe in. Our spiritual faith is one of the pillars. For us, being baptized in union symbolizes that chief aspect of our marriage. The only people involved in the ceremony were Doc B, me, and our pastor. It wasn't about Emily Post's rules. It was about the ones we, together, choose to make our life plumb lines.
Plus there's nothing like fully-clothed adults putting aside all ego to splash around in a pool. It reminds you that God and your spouse don't care what you look like, where you came from, what you're wearing or whom you're with. Heaven only sees hearts beating. It only hears genuine laughter. I believe that's its kind of "to love, honor, and cherish." That's holiness.
Tell us about the beautiful dress and flowers. How was planning this event different than planning your wedding 10 years ago?
So very different! It was fun to do the whole fairytale wedding thing back in my twenties. But today, all that fuss-and-puff makes me want to put on pajama pants, pop a frozen pizza in the oven, and call it a night. Exhausting! Our 10-year vow renewal was low-key relaxing.
I got my white dress online in a mega-sale. Doc B always gets me flowers for celebrations. I'm not a gifty gal. I don't want trinkets or bobbles, but I swoon for blooms. When he asked me what kind of anniversary flowers I'd like, I sent him a text photo of my wedding bouquet and said, "Something with these flowers. Only smaller -- a nosegay." He'd never heard the word nosegay in his life. Proof: you can teach an old dog new tricks. Two days before our anniversary, he went to the florist. Ten white roses for our 10 years with blue hydrangea accents, wrapped together with a little ribbon and voila! All we needed after that was our pastor, a quiet setting, and a pool, generously provided by our local church. Making something special doesn't have to cost a lot of money, time, or energy. All you need are two passionate people and a positive expectation.
Does this experience of making love last show up in your fiction writing? Or vice versa, what does being a writer teach you about being a wife?
I don't consciously write my relationships into my fiction. In fact, I try NOT to write any shade of them into my work. That goes for my husband and family members to my friends. I allow my novels' characters to be wholly their own, apart from their "mother" creator. And while their love stories are shared with worldwide readers, I guard my own with fierce privacy. It's too precious a thing to treat with anything less than sacred respect. I'm honored to have a spouse who champions my work, my ambitions, my deepest desires, and one who challenges me with his eternal optimism and steadfast faith. Doc B is my ultimate wingman. I know him so profoundly well that any reproduction on the page would feel shallow and inauthentic. It would be an injustice to him and to the character I sought to portray.
All that being said, I am human. As an author, all of my personal experiences act as a filter through which my story worlds are projected. So it's inevitable that I'll feel most connected to certain characters that share my struggles and joys. And that character spirits will seek me out to tell their stories for similar reasons.
Do you have any advice for other high school sweethearts that want to make their commitment's last?
Love is a business beyond my pay grade. Some aspects of it are simply meant-to-be or not-meant-to-be. So I can only speak to my relationship knowledge. I believe if you find someone who shares your core values and is willing to change with you as you grown into the future, don't let them go. Not even if others tell you to "play the field" and "explore your options," and all that gobbledygook we hear on reality dating shows today. If you make the choice to love a person unconditionally, whether he/she ends up being your spouse or your closest friend, you are blessed happily ever after.
I asked Doc B to chime in for this last question. His advice: "Be committed to each other and if you put the other's welfare and happiness first, you'll never have to worry about your own."
Yeah... that's the man I married.