Firefighter sees marriage as an eternal flame

Mathis Winkler

A beautiful, open flame. Not blazing. Not smoldering. Just a beautiful,

open flame.

That’s how Michael A. Treanor, a veteran firefighter with the Costa Mesa

Fire Department, would describe marriage if he’d relate it to his work.

“When [the flame] goes to smoldering, it loses oxygen and suffocates,” he

said. “That’s when it has to be rekindled or it dies.”

For more than two decades, Treanor and his wife, Carmela, both 55, have

counseled Catholic couples about the ups and downs of married life. As

required by the Roman Catholic Church, everyone planning to tie the knot

has to attend preparation sessions to ensure that both partners know

they’re about to make a commitment for life.

So it’s a bit like traffic school?

“No,” Michael Treanor said. “More like driving school. In traffic school,

you’ve already made the mistakes.”

Fortunately, he added, the counseling helps some couples realize it might

not be the right time to make the ultimate commitment.

“They say, ‘We’ll hold off for now, because maybe we’re not quite ready,’

” he added.

Although they were 20 years old when they stood at the altar April 24,

1965, staying together was never in question for the Treanors.

“Carmela and I married very young,” Treanor conceded, “but with the

strong belief that it was forever.”

Sitting together in a Fire Department office, the couple talked about

their marriage, saying their faith in God’s guidance has helped them grow

as a couple.

“You marry with God and Christ present,” Carmela Treanor said. “You are

never alone and [you’re] strengthened by the love of Christ. ... We die

to one another. We give up our personal lives to be a couple and rise to

something beautiful.”

The Treanors have tried to pass on their experience to younger people who

are thinking about marriage. While also involved in volunteer work with

the church, Michael Treanor said talking about life as a couple was one

of the things he knew best.

“There are two things I know: being a fireman and being a father and

married,” he said. “I can teach that.”

Teaching about marriage also involves talking about inevitable problems,

his wife added.

“We let people know that we’re normal,” she said. “We have good days and

bad days.”

The couple sometimes disagreed on methods for raising their eight

children--he favored a strict education while she was more compassionate.

Mornings also used to be tough for the couple.

“God made sunrises for me,” Michael Treanor said.

His wife, on the other hand, wasn’t impressed when her husband woke her

at 5 a.m. on a cruise to let her know what the cooks were up to.

“Now, I get up with him in the morning,” she said. “We just don’t talk.”

The Treanors started counseling couples in six-week seminars at their

Anaheim home.

Since then, Carmela Treanor has made the transition from stay-at-home mom

to director of family life at the Catholic Diocese of Orange.

As part of their volunteer counseling commitment, she and her husband

talk to audiences of more than a hundred people and speak with Mater Dei

High School seniors in Santa Ana.

One of their daughters attended those school seminars as well. But while

two of their children are married and have gone through marriage

preparation themselves, the Treanors left the guidance sessions up to

others. Or maybe not?

“You can talk about what it means to be married,” Carmela said. “But

they’ve lived this life with us, and they can see how we’ve devoted our

lives to each other.”