I am 72.
Nita is 73. We have not (yet) lived particularly long lives. Looking ahead, we
may or may not experience the luxury living through our eighty’s, into our
ninety’s. We don’t know if either of us will face the challenge of living with
grace and dignity as our abilities to keep doing what we’ve always done, fall
away, one at a time. That’s the unknown future.
The
wonderful known thing of now, is that today is our 50th wedding
anniversary. For more than 2/3 of our lives, Nita and I have been ‘us.’ I’ve said more than a few times that she and
I aren’t just married, we’re joined at the hip.
It’s
common to hear couples joke about staying married a long time. They mention
making it through the ‘rough patches.’
Maybe I’m wearing blinders, or am already senile, but I honestly don’t
remember any particularly rough patches in our five decades of marriage. I
think that means that if God sometimes shoves two young people at each other, His
hands were on our backs in the days when we were barely adults.
Fifty
years of marriage has never been a special goal of ours. Neither of our own
parent couples reached a golden anniversary, due to the mid-life divorce of my
parents and the sudden death of Nita’s father just a few weeks after our
wedding. We all know that lives end unexpectedly, and paths chosen early in
life, change. We understand that both luck and God’s grace have helped our
marriage. We are proud of reaching fifty years together, and rather than having
attained a goal, we’re viewing today as a mile marker, a noteworthy stake
alongside the road with a gravel pull-out for a little celebration before
moving further on down the highway.
Regretfully,
the first week of 2022 has already unveiled itself as another frustrating year
of on-again-off-gain gatherings. Plans for our golden anniversary reception
later today have moved from maskless to masked, from indoors to outdoors. and
may wind up as only an intimate family gathering. Our little town is not in a
protective bubble. Nearly one in three people in our county are testing
positive for the new Covid, and not surprisingly, our circle of friends
includes a lot of seniors like us who are shy about exposing themselves to
infection. Nonetheless, we’ll toast ourselves with whoever shows up.
And
yesterday, bless them both, our two sons each put surprise gifts in front of
us. Son Ben carried in a small table he built, the top of which is an old
stained-glass window that was salvaged from the demolition of the church where
we were hitched. Now that’s a meaningful momento.
After we previewed
the Power Point slide show of highlights of our fifty-year marriage that I
pulled together for today’s reception, son Todd said, “We’re not done yet. Stay
seated.”
He then popped
up on the big TV screen an anniversary congratulations speech to us from actor Sean
Aston. Sean, otherwise known as Samwise
Gamgee, J.R.R. Tolkien’s character who was the relucant compass who kept Frodo
on the hard but truth path. I first read
Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy in 1967, and in 2014 I almost
missed the tour bus just so I could drink a pint in the tavern in Oxford,
England where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis hung out. The short congratulatory speech
to us from the guy who played Sam was touching and cool, and for the second
time in the day before our anniversary, I wiped away tears. It struck me for
not the first time that Nita’s and my best work lay in our two sons.
So, later
today we will celebrate with whoever shows up, and the day after we will begin
our second half-century together. Stay tuned.
