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Love Will Keep Us Together


I'm not sure when I learned that Love Will Keep Us Together was my parent's song.

They had the Captain and Tennille LP (It must have been kinda like having a New Kids on the Block CD - it seemed like a good idea at the time).

I remember distincting the two wrinkley faced bulldogs on the front who oddly enough resembled my parents two dogs which they bought years later, Frankie and Agatha.

I also remember not really understanding why the Captain was wearing a captain's hat and singing. If he was really a captain, what was he doing shacking up with some skinny babe to make music? Should he be sailing the seven seas?

Music always seemed to blare from the stereo, louder than it really needed to be but perfect for my deaf drummer father, who after years of gigs with smokes and babes, (you know, those years between 16 and 23) had either become slightly hard of hearing or simply was trying to drown us all out and get back to the good ole days.

And it was not odd to see my parents dancing cheek to cheek together, swaying with the beat, singing their hearts out, smiling up at each other.

But it was only Captain and Tennille that made their eyes light up just that little bit more. As I got older, I got it. This must be it.

Surreally enough for my parents, it was during a karaoke night out that us four kids got up on stage and serenaded our parents to their song.

They cheered and whooped in the back clapping and singing along, laughing and beaming at the crew they had created.

And when we sat down, it was my dad who said,

'If someone had told me 30 years ago that I would be watching my four children, singing karaoke to Captain and Tenille, I would have told them they were crazy.'

In a way, I think we may have stole their song. From that moment, it suddenly became a family song, one of the many over the years that we have stories associated with.

And now we have this one.

After months of planning and a day filled with love and laughter, the Vs came together one more time for a moment of singing and dancing.

This pictures made me a bit weepy this morning, knowing that as I get older, the fewer and fewer times we'll have to actually have these times together.

I'm glad someone at the wedding captured this. I was lost and caught up in the moment and had forgotten it until I saw this picture.

I suppose we are missing a few people from it - the boys who have survived years or month's in P's case with us crazy Vs and our crazy ways.

Perhaps though this was a moment for nostalgia - one to remind us of times dancing in the living room together, making up routines around our parents and they swayed back and forth, romance among the little ones.

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