The Wrong Anniversary


It’s been 10 years since Greg passed away.

Today, Sept 26, marks what I thought for years, was our wedding anniversary.

Then one day, Greg casually made a reference to Sept 28th as “the day we got married”. I was enraged! Livid! Disappointed! Accusatory! How could he not even remember our anniversary? After all this time? Did he even really care about US? After everything we’d been through? (and so on, and so forth …)

Greg was never one to back down from an argument,  even when he was clearly in the wrong. So he proceeded to do some research into our life history. Minutes later, having waded through our ancient filing cabinet, he fished out our Marriage Certificate and waved it triumphantly in my face.

Apparently, I was the one who had the date wrong… for many, many years. 

The actual date WAS Sept 28th. And I didn’t hear the end of it.

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On anniversaries, birthdays, occasions of any sort, Greg and I often referred to our “long, hard, painful years” together. Eventually, it became our shorthand: our LHP years.

We loved each other deeply, so LHP was tongue-in-cheek. Well, mostly. We DID have some damned hard, painful years, like every long relationship, and we didn’t like to pretend otherwise.

The following is a post I wrote some years ago, and  I’m sharing an edited version of it today (on the wrong date), in commemoration of our very imperfect love story – our LHP years together, which began on Sept 28th, 1986 and ended with his death on May 16th, 2014.

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Greg struck me as pretty impressive from the moment I first heard him play guitar and sing. I think it was Rocky Racoon. He had the audience in the palm of his hand.

The first time Greg remembers seeing me, I too was playing guitar and singing. In contrast, my performance barely made an impression on him. In fact, he stopped only to check out if my guitar skills posed any competition. He quickly realised that they didn’t, and kept right on walking.

However, we were invited to sing together for the first time at a friend’s wedding, and soon after received invitation after invitation to perform. Our audiences were varied, from Folk Festivals and Peace Festivals, from big weddings to backyards events, Greg and I were constantly on stage. Just me, him and his guitar.

When our voices blended in harmony it made me feel a little bit magical, like I was a better singer, a better person than I actually was.

I gave up playing guitar entirely in the face of his skill. There was no need, as he could play anything. And then over the years, we kept singing together, and eventually, just like in the movies, he wrote songs just for me, most of them lost forever because back then, he never recorded them. We married in the throes of an Epic Romance when I was just twenty-four years old. He totally swept me off my feet. He was handsome and strong. Zany, brilliant, irreverent. Relatively unschooled, but unexpectedly scholarly.

An enigma from the beginning, Greg was only seven years older than me, yet he seemed to have a lifetime’s more experience than I did. I’d never met another like him. Now I know that was because there wasn’t anyone else like him.

Greg was raised in a straight-forward, white, salt-of-the-earth, working class Australian family. I had a very mixed origin, coming from a fairly privileged, middle class, academic, Malaysian-Indian family. His father was a truckie. Mine held a PhD and consulted for the United Nations. Greg was a Baby Boomer, I was closer to being a Gen X-er. When we married, I was well-travelled and had lived in four countries. He had never even left Australia. He was passionate about football. I was equally passionate in my disdain for it.

Greg seemed to know everything and fear nothing. I knew very little and feared So-Many-Things.

We were united by music and poetry, our sense of humour and our shared beliefs in the Baha’i Faith, but our upbringing and our life circumstances meant we often held very different world views.

Being married to Greg was an adventure. Full of surprises, exciting and occasionally blissful … with a bloody great set of challenges. Some of these were self-imposed, some just life-imposed, those challenges threatened our marriage and nearly destroyed us. But like a country music song, we loved each other, fought hard, hung on, survived and thrived.

When he died after four years of battling Stage Four kidney cancer, it was as if a burning meteor had blazed its way across my life, only to continue its journey out of my line of sight forever.

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Gregory, if you can see this from wherever you are: Thank you for every moment of our LHP twenty-eight years together. I’m forever grateful for our oh so imperfect love story.  Happy Not-Our-Actual-Anniversary.

“Your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle. 
Everything I do is stitched with its colour.” 
-WS Merwin


If you’d like to say hi, and share your thoughts, just scroll down to the comments below.
It makes me happy to hear from you 🙂

Comments 32

  1. So funny, sad and beautiful all in one incredible love story. Here I am, sitting with my 2 living sisters (1- 8 years older, other 6 years younger) and me the only one with a wonderful man/hubby still around, and chuckling away in certain places getting funny looks. I will explain why and then they will repeat a story (or two) of their own lovely fellows. Love always seems to win through, regardless of troubles. Happy non- anniversary!!

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      Thank you Robin, I celebrated the non-anniversary by looking for houses… hoping he’d help me find one from his expanded vantage point in the other realms… no luck yet, but maybe he’s waiting for our ACTUAL anniversary. I can feel a “I told you so!” coming on!

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  2. Brought tears to my eyes Mal, not just because it’s moving, but because there’s so much wisdom , meaning, looking at life’s stuff that comes out way with clarity & not rose coloured glasses. Thanks soooo much for making the time to write it
    Bon Bon

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      I’m touched that you’re touched – so sweet of you to write such kind words. Thank you! You bore witness to many of those LHP years we shared.

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  3. Malini, your prose is always a gift to those who read it. Such touching humour weaved through profound wisdom of LHP times. May your not actual anniversary lead to an actual anniversary of finding your new home.

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  4. I too share your ability to celebrate my anniversary on the wrong date being 29 December and not the 28th as I had thought. Only it wasn’t my husband who corrected me but my mother haha. My husband took my word for it as he often does, sometimes regretfully haha. We now celebrate on the correct date and always have the same laugh about it each year. Thank you for sharing your loving feelings about yours and Greg’s relationship – certainly for celebration. Chris

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      Wow, I don’t feel so silly, someone else has made the same mistake! And thank YOU for reading my story, and for sharing a little of yours! Much love x

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  5. Not sure what it is about your story that takes my breath away, but it sure touches my heart deeply. Maybe it’s the raw honesty or the beauty of your relationship. Your strength, positivity and joyful heart shines through. Xx

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      Thank you Lindi. Speaking of honesty, Greg was incredibly honest, sometimes annoyingly so… I used to say to him, “couldn’t you just lie a little, just to make me feel better?!!”

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  6. I remember l started reading your heartbreak stories 10 years ago, and resonating with your creativity. l too experienced the passing of my beloved sister 10 years ago. Today l celebrate her birthday.
    Grief never leaves us…it has become part of my life and my creativity.

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      I am so sorry you have also lost someone dear to you. Yes, the grief becomes woven into the fabric of our lives, our art and our hearts.

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  7. Thank you for sharing this beautiful and heartfelt story of your life with Greg, Malini. I’m so sorry he had to leave so early and wish you well as you continue your solo journey, especially with the changes coming as you move.
    My eyes did pop open as I read “a burning meteor had blazed its way across my life” because this phrase was used in my brother’s notice after he passed suddenly a long time ago… and he was also a Gregory. They must be in a hurry.
    Love and hugs to you. Thank you for your many gifts and the sharing you do.

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      That’s is really beautiful Lynda, I am honoured that we share lovely Gregory’s, and I’m sure the meteors have now have met!

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  9. One day there will be a joyous reunion in the Kingdom to come. And how proud he must be of all you wonderfual artistic achievements you have made since he “graduated”.

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      Thank you Anne! I’m delighted you see it as ‘great material for couples’, Greg would have gotten a laugh out of that 🙂

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  11. Beautiful, Mal. I love how you saw Greg.  So different from my first impressions!!!! But you were right and I was wrong . Love you, Gregory Pegory Parker.

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      He was a VERY annoying man in his younger days, I’m not surprised you didn’t take to him! But to be fair, it was his music that made a favouable first impression me, not his adversarial ways!

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  13. I love the honesty and beauty of your written expression, Malini. What a gift you have to be able to express your deepest emotions both artistically and verbally. It must be as great a source of comfort to yourself as it is a source of inspiration to those with whom you share. Greg was exceptional and so are you … such strength, courage, dedication and talent! With love and admiration, Moira

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      Moira you are too too kind to me. But I appreciate those generous sentiments. Greg was certainly deserving of them.Ten years on, his absence is still strongly felt, just in a different way, and it has brought me so much comfort to receive this outpouring of kindness and warmth from my readers and friends like you. xxx

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