We celebrated our 57th wedding anniversary on Monday while we marveled how fast the years had flown and remembered some highlights of the wedding. We were young, strong and naïvely confident of a rosy life together. Today we are old and don't have enough strength to do some of the things we once did without much effort. I am increasingly more stooped due to a combination of scoliosis, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. I asked Leroy if he would still have married me if he had been able to see how I look today. He turned the question around and asked if I would have married him if I had seen how he is today at eighty years old. We decided we probably wouldn't have believed what we saw.
We have had a good life although it was not all rosy and my confidence was shot full of holes. I was not as wise or mature as I thought I was at nineteen. There were times I didn't know how to handle the problems in life and made a lot of mistakes. Two things were in our favor. We had a strong faith in God and commitment to each other.
The older we get, the more we realize either one without the other would be in trouble. He depends on me to keep the books and the calendar. I depend on him for maintenance of the property and car. We were raised in families with similar values and agree on most things. Sometimes when I didn't agree with him and he went ahead anyway, I found he was right. Our children say they never heard us argue. I'm sure they heard us disagree but never heard a loud blow out argument.
Leroy worked until he was 77 and retired three years ago. All physical ailments aside, these are the best years of our lives. We enjoy the luxury of being together all day every (or most) day. We do volunteer work at several places as we please. It took a long time and hard work to get to this place.
Leroy got a gift certificate for Cracker Barrel for his 80th birthday last December. We saved it to celebrate out anniversary. We have learned that restaurant meals are too large for us and one entre is enough for both of us. We ordered a steak and shrimp dinner with two sides and an additional side of a loaded baked potato. The waiter brought us an extra plate to divide it and it was plenty. I asked him to take a picture of us because it was our anniversary. He obliged and when we finished eating brought us a slice of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and ice cream "on the house." It was against Leroy's diabetic rules but what could we do when he set it under our noses? We thanked him and ate it!
No comments:
Post a Comment