As couples begin preparing for their wedding and marriage, they face many decisions and often have many questions. The Catholic Voice turned to two archdiocesan officials - Father Patrick Harrison, judicial vicar for the Archdiocese of Omaha who works with annulment cases, and Valerie Conzett, director of the Archdiocesan Family Life Office - for answers to some of those questions. This Q&A summarizes their answers and also includes information from the Archdiocesan Pastoral Policy book.
When Elmer Jackson made those wedding vows about better and worse, richer and poorer and sickness and health 67 years ago to his wife, Mary, he probably didn't fully understand the meaning of what he was promising.
But he does now.
Sitting next to his wife, Elmer looked like a man in love.
There was a twinkle in the 89-year-old's eye during his visit to her room at Parsons House, an assisted living facility in West Omaha.
"She always looks pretty," Elmer said while looking at a photo taken when they were dating.
For the most part, their marriage has been for the better, the richer and in health. They've been blessed with seven children, financial stability and many travels around the United States.
But their life as they knew it began to change about four years ago when Elmer had to place Mary, now 88, in the Alzheimer's unit at Parsons House. She was forgetting things and becoming uninterested in eating or taking her medication. She also suffered balance problems and became too heavy for Elmer, who uses a walker, and their son, Jim, to lift when she would fall in their home in the Eagle Run neighborhood.
