Long & lasting Love

Launtia Cuff, Gleaner Writer

Fifty years have come and gone, but he still opens doors for her and plays in her hair. Mavis and Locksley White have a love that, in a time when marriages don't seem to last, would be envied by many - a long and lasting love.

The Whites, who celebrated their golden anniversary on March 23, recommitted their marriage before God at the Grace Chapel in Black River, St Elizabeth, with family members and friends as their witnesses.

The romance started when they met at a wedding in England. Locksley White was asked to toast the then Mavis Monteith, who was a bridesmaid.

"While I was toasting her as the bridesmaid, I kept on admiring her, and the more I admired her, it's like I saw a name tag on her with my name written across it, Locksley Aloysius White. And there and then I said, 'This lady is going to be mine'," Locksley recalled to Outlook.

Locksley befriended Mavis, who said that she was most attracted to him because of the fact that he was a Christian. They dated for 10 months, after which he proposed.

"I wasn't the flirty type and I wasn't crazy over getting married either. I was just like, 'Whenever the Lord's ready. If He sees it fit, someone will come my way'. And that was just how it happened. We were both at the right place at the right time, and it grew from then," Mavis said

On March 23, 1963, they got married in England, and the union produced three girls - Marie, Ruth and Paula.

The Whites say they always saw their marriage as a partnership and that is one of the things that has helped it to work.

"He would help with the children if he got home first. The pot would be on the fire. I'm cooking, he would do the laundry, he would cut the lawn. We just worked. It wasn't a man's work or a woman's work," explained Mavis.

"I think that what helped us is the fact that we never competed against each other. We complemented each other. Whatever had to be done, we did it," notes Locksley.

This did not make them immune to problems, and the Whites admitted that, over the years, different things took a toll on the marriage, but they never allowed these things to threaten their marriage.

"Because we are Christians, we had our devotions and, whatever may have been the challenge, by the time we finished our devotions to retire, even if it's not totally reconciled, there is a change of heart. And I took it up as my responsibility as a man to listen more than I talk, because I realise you can never win an argument against a woman. The best way I know how is not to have one," said Locksley.

"I remember one day we were having an argument and I could see down the road that if we didn't change course, we didn't know what would happen. I went to her and I hugged her and I said, 'Listen, I don't know what you're going to do with your marriage, but I promised until death do us part, and I'm going to need your help'," he added.

Mavis said that, looking back, she would start arguments over things that, as time passed, she realised how trivial they were.

"It's not an easy road. I'm not going to tell anybody because I've been married 50 years that we never had any problems; that would not be true. But it's just how we handled it, and we thank God we've come through them without hurting each other, fighting, walking out on the marriage, or any such thing," Mavis added.