Patience, love make lasting nectar for life together

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

Ward Stewart, 73, and George Vye, 67, began their life together 48 years ago and were married last month in Canada.

He's been sending out e-mails this week letting the world know: They finally made it legal (at least the most legal way possible.)

Stewart, 73, and his longtime companion, 67-year-old George Vye, ran off from their Waikiki condo to Victoria, British Columbia, two weeks ago and signed a certificate proclaiming them husband and husband. (In July, British Columbia legalized gay marriage. Stewart and Vye have been among hundreds of gay Americans who have flocked there to tie the knot.)

So what do they have to teach a straight woman half their age about marriage? More than I expected.

They already have outlasted a lot of married couples who have faced far fewer obstacles. And their take on life and love are good lessons for anybody.

"In the '40s when George and I first became aware of our sexuality, it was plain to us that we had, in the lottery of life, been dealt lemons," said Stewart, a retired nurse from New York. "From those lemons we made up a pitcher of lemonade of such excellence that it was wildly intoxicating in the springtime, wondrously sustaining and joyful during the long summer of our lives, and now, in autumn, there are still astonishing moments of sweetness as the crusts of sugar in the bottom of the pitcher are disturbed."

Who can argue with prose like that?

Theirs is a love story that stacks up against the best of them.

Stewart was 25 and operating an art gallery in New York when a 19-year-old student with the Martha Graham dance company wandered in; they began what Stewart describes as a "long, harmless" and loving life together.

Stewart ran his gallery for years, became a nurse and was one of the founding members of a Greenwich Village health center that pioneered the identification and treatment of HIV patients during the emerging AIDS pandemic. Vye became an artist and book illustrator, and they lived in Manhattan and Staten Island until they retired to Hawai'i about 14 years ago.

Here, they became crusaders for the same-sex marriage issue, and though it failed, they never gave up. They continue to fight for the same pursuit of happiness as straight couples long for.

When I first heard about their wedding, I wondered how they would feel about being included in this wedding-planner column. Even though they don't advertise their couplehood by walking hand-in-hand down the beach, these are two men who never really shied away from appearing in places where other people thought they might not belong.

They got married for many of the same reasons I'm getting married, but their wedding was more a matter of politics.

"We have been utterly married for many years," Stewart said. "We're as married as we can be without federal recognition."

Logistically, their wedding was like an elopement. Two friends from Seattle came as their witnesses, and they married in a hotel room, barefoot and wearing regular aloha shirts and pants.

"It was only moderately more romantic than getting a dog license," Stewart joked. They celebrated with a nice dinner and bottle of champagne, and their news has been met with absolute approval from their friends and families.

No matter how you feel about same-sex marriage, their love is an inspiration.

Patience and love are their secrets to a happy life together. They say being nice to each other is another of their pacts.

"Never let those words fly out of your head that you can't get back," Stewart advised.

He has given me some of the best advice yet on love and marriage. I'm hoping my own pitcher of lemonade will taste just as sweet.

Tanya Bricking writes about relationships for The Advertiser.

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