More Reminiscing, More Flu

It started to become obvious last night as I went to bed that I was not ready to have eaten a spicy taco salad last night. This morning I felt even worse. The leftovers are all for my husband and I am going back to yogurt, fruit and tea.

This morning is absolutely gorgeous with bright blue skies that almost burn your eyes. The sun is shining on the snow still in the foothills and on the tops of the mountains. Even though everything else is brown, there is a promise of Spring in the air. If I feel better I just may go sit outside on our front porch to take it all in.

Forty-one years ago the day dawned much as it has here today, but warmer. It was gorgeous and very hot. 

My fiance and I, my mother and father, some friends and relatives spent the morning decorating the venue where our reception was to be held the next day. We were so excited and had a great time setting up everything.  Not a thought was given to the changes in our lives that were about to take place. We were in the moment and having a wonderful time!  It didn't take long with so many helping until the Norman Rockwell-ian house tucked into the foothills overlooking the valley where I lived with my parents was ready for the many guests that would occupy its rooms soon. We went home.

Ladies, close friends and relatives, were in their own kitchens cooking for the reception. My future mother-in-law was roasting a 40 lb. turkey, my mother was doing a ham and a roast and various side dishes. I think grandmothers were making baked beans and potato salad, others made rolls, veggie dishes and the mandatory Jell-o salads. It was what people did back then----all working together on the food, if a meal was served. I love that----it was a work of many willing and busy hands and lots of love. The beautiful, professionally-done cake was already at the reception site in the refrigerator as were the makings of the champagne punch. My future husband and I were packing for our honeymoon. He had just gotten new orders from the USMC  for Okinawa---through a series of mishaps the North Carolina orders had been changed shortly before the wedding and we were to be separated for one year. But we had one month before my husband had to leave without me.

We planned a very long honeymoon. We drove all the way up the coast almost into Canada and back down. We stayed in fancy hotels, places right on the ocean, we camped in forests and on beaches, we visited his family. It was a wonderful honeymoon after which we came back to spend a few days each with our parents.. But on this day we didn't think of  the upcoming separation.  We packed. When the reception hall was decorated, the food was readied and we were packed we went our separate ways to spend our last unmarried night alone with our parents. It was a bittersweet time.

It does not seem like all that was so many years ago. I remember details, feelings, and yes, what I wore! But, I do not remember what it felt like to be unmarried. After so many years it seems as though my husband and I have always been together and I can't remember or imagine life without him.

He is not feeling well this morning and he didn't sleep well. I hope he is not getting my flu. This is the start of his busy season and knowing my husband, he will work no matter how sick he feels.

So, here we are on a gorgeous late winter day one day before our 41st. wedding anniversary......sick.
This is an "...in sickness and in health..." anniversary for us. Whereas I don't think it is something to celebrate it is probably something we will look back at and laugh over.

Life is funny. We have had some very strange anniversaries: I have been kidnapped (by my husband), we have had babysitters cancel at the last minute, we spent our first anniversary apart---he in Okinawa, me with my parents in the states, I spent part of our 20th in the back of a patrol car after our engine caught fire after we ran out of gas on our way to a mountain hideaway--- and many more memorable times. So, the flu is not a huge deal. I have come to realize that no one day of married life matters much or defines our lives together. It is all of life taken together that makes our marriages what they are. It is that promise of life in the beginning, the newness, the growing together as a couple, the child years, the goodbye years, the grandchildren, the settling into that nest alone once again, growing old together. It is tears, joy, laughter, bitter sweetness  sorrow, the lean years and those of plenty. But it is being together in it all. It is cherishing your life together. It is that commitment before God and man. It is the daily life. Our source for it all should be God and secondly, each other.

When I remember us as 20-somethings starting out our life together not knowing where it would take us, I marvel. Here we are, decades later, together as 60-somethings still not knowing where life will take us and I still marvel. When we think about where we are in life now from where we started, the mercies and goodness of God shine bright in it all. We are humbled by His care throughout these years together. We see His hand in it all---even our meeting over 42 years ago. It all says to us that we were made for each other as they say. When I was a little girl praying for my future husband I was praying for a little boy who lived not very far away, whom I had never met and wouldn't for another decade at least. Wow. All my dreams to be a wife and mother were realized in him through God. Keeping that perspective in a life that is so "daily" gives me strength and makes me thankful.

I have no doubt tomorrow, our anniversary, will be special no matter in what state we find ourselves.
Life is funny.........