Fifty-Three Years Later - A Journey

Fifty-three Years Later ~ A Journey

Our wedding was simple, beautiful, full of joy. Our hearts were full of faith and hope and promise, and a myriad of youthful dreams. Then came the marriage. It was so much more than we had expected, as we began to discover life, and each other.

There were days of hard work and fun, laughter and loving. Days of weariness and hardship - empty cupboards and empty wallets, frightened prayers as we wondered if God would help. (Help always came.) Days of closeness and warmth and together-feelings, and days of struggle and loneliness and sometimes asking ourselves, "Who is this stranger I am sharing my life with?" Sharing the miracle of creation of new life - bringing children into the warm nest of our home, and experiencing together the heart-stretching joys and struggles of parenthood, as we became forever a family. Days of distance and separateness and little communication, and days of coming back together, sometimes through the pain, to rediscover who we were together. Days of impatience and discouragement and wanting to give up, and days of knowing that what we'd done and what we had were good and valuable, and worth working to keep.

It took many days, so very many days, to make our marriage - from the threads of the daily-ness of life, the good days and the bad days, all mixed up together, and the determination, courage, and commitment to keep on loving, to live out that daily-ness, one day at a time, that we wove the tough and enduring fabric of which our marriage was made.

Now those days are done, and you are gone. Today, as we tell you goodbye, I look back and remember - and celebrate our most amazing journey.