Vincy couple celebrates 35 years of marital bliss amid challenges
A Vincentian couple in Brooklyn Saturday night celebrated 35 years of marital bliss surrounded by close relatives, friends and supporters at a gala commemoration at Glen Terrace on Avenue N in Brooklyn, despite personal challenges in recent times.
Miranda “Dell” and Nicholas “Nick” Lucas – both 61 – had postponed Mrs. Lucas’s 60th birthday celebration last year, at the same venue, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They, however, decided to celebrate their wedding anniversary this year, giving God absolute, high praise.
“Considering all that we went thorough for the past year, I feel really blessed to be able to celebrate our 35th anniversary,” Mrs. Lucas told Caribbean Life on Monday, in an exclusive interview, disclosing: “2020 was five years since I was breast cancer free.
“We wanted to make that celebration in 2020, but it so happened that COVID hit; and, this year, with our 35th anniversary celebration, we said, ‘let’s do it for the anniversary,’” she said.
“Five years breast cancer free, 60th birthday and 35th wedding anniversary – God is good!” Mrs. Lucas exclaimed. “Thank God for everything.
“And I don’t get mad for a lot of things,” she added. “I have a lot to be thankful for, and I’m not even one of those who get upset over silly things. I trust God for everything.”
Mrs. Lucas also made another revelation: “We got COVID-19 in March 2020. I had full-blown (COVID-19), and my husband had it not so bad.
“I took a blood test to know if I had it; and, sure enough, I had it,” she said, stating that she had gone to a hair salon, where she believed she contracted the virus.
“Thank God I’m still here,” she affirmed, adding that, though she got COVID-19 in March last year, it lingered up to and beyond hospitalization in October of that year.
“I had the long-haul COVID,” Mrs. Lucas continued. “I had already made peace with everything. I had Stage 3 Breast Cancer (she was diagnosed in 2014).
“I try not to make anything in life bother me,” she said. “I’m a ‘Simple Simon’; I became a ‘Simple Simon.’”
But, based on Saturday night’s gala, it would be impossible to discern the challenges that the Lucases underwent in recent years. Neither they, family members or supporters spoke of or intimated about them.
Instead, patrons lavished the couple with high praises and lauded the Almighty for enabling them to witness 35 years of unadulterated love, devotion and commitment.
“I generally tell people that I get most of my bourgeois attitude, love of the finer things, such the arts, fashion, travel and adventure from my mom,” the Lucas’s son, Kimron “Kam” Lucas, 38, told the ceremony.
“I appreciate you guys for the lessons, for the commitment to this family and, above all, to each other,” he added. “Thank you forever and cheers to another 35!”
Byron Ashley “BA” Lucas, Mr. Lucas’s elder brother, 1 ½ years his senior, said: “I’m here to wish Nick and Miranda a happy, happy anniversary.
“I never know he (Mr. Lucas) had a girlfriend in the village (Great House, Lowman’s Hill, St. Vincent and the Grenadines) until he met Dell,” he added to laughter.
Gwendolyn Holder, Mr. Lucas’s younger sister by 1 ½ years and Mrs. Lucas’s friend prior to their marriage, said her brother “does not put on.
“He’s the one who makes me who I am today,” she added, disclosing that their mother had nine children.
“Let us love one another and be good to each other,” chimed in Geoffrey Holder, Mrs. Holder’s husband.
Laverne McDowald-Thompson – president of the Brooklyn-based Council of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, U.S.A., Inc. (COSAGO), the umbrella Vincentian group in the US – said she and Mrs. Lucas grew up in Chateaubelair, a town along the west north western shores of mainland St. Vincentian, relatively close to La Soufriere Volcano, which explosively erupted in April.
“I just want to wish you a happy anniversary,” she said. “It’s a joy for us to celebrate this moment.
“Continue to let your love grow and keep God at the center,” McDowald-Thompson advised. “And who God puts together, let no one put asunder.”
Trinidadian Horace Briggs, a Brooklyn resident, who worked closely with Mr. Lucas at the New York Transit Authority – both are now retired – said “Brother Lucas is a dedicated husband.
“He loves his family,” he said. “I want to wish you continued love and blessings.”
Jeffrey Glasgow, who hails from Campden Park, near Lowman’s Hill, in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, brought along his Jamaican-born wife.
“I want to wish you the very best,” he said. “May God continue to bless you.”
After patrons raised their glasses with champaign to three cheers to the couple, Mr. Lucas said: “It’s a long way back from 1986 (when they tied the knot).
“We came here (to New York) in 1983, 84; and, after we got married, we went across the street to McDonald’s,” he said to laughter. “Now, we’re here celebrating with friends and family. Thanks to everybody.
“If I have to do it again, I’ll marry her (Mrs. Lucas) again,” added Mr. Lucas to loud cheers.
He said he and his wife were only asking guests to help Mrs. Lucas’s hometown, Chateaubelair, recover from the ravages of La Soufriere’s volcanic eruptions in April.
During the previous explosive eruptions, in April 1979, Mrs. Lucas’s family had moved to Campden Park, where Mr. Lucas met his future wife.
As patrons viewed images and reports from this year’s eruptions, the DJ, Hailes Castello, who also served as Master of Ceremonies, played “I Rise Up” and the late Vincentian calypsonian Rasum’s “Perseverance.”
