We Tied The Knot Some Years Back . . .

It's been years now, and each year that "The Day" comes around, and like so many of us, it causes me to remember those long-ago times, when a somewhat shy and very funny man came into my life and managed to change the direction of my future.

I was studying to be a professional classical vocalist, preparing to study in Europe (which I managed to do eventually) and to get my college degree (which I eventually also did). But on a blind date--we met in the LaSalle Street Rail Station in Chicago in February when he met my train when I was coming back from a weekend with my parents in Iowa--and nothing was ever again the same. And guess

what? Three weeks--yes, three (3) weeks later, we eloped and just a month later he was leaving to travel to Berlin, Germany. You see, he was a Pfc in the United States Army and was being re-assigned. We didn't see each other for six months when I was finally able to travel to Berlin where we lived for nearly 3-1/2 years.

And lest we lose our reputation for doing things quickly and in a big way, we had four (4) kids in five years--three daughters and a son, and our family has blossomed to include six grandkids, three of whom are now grown and living as successful adults.

It's been an interesting journey, and as we are growing older, there are issues that keep on bugging us as with all couples, stuff that just

that just doesn't seem to go away, and yet considering a future without him doesn't even enter into the equation. We certainly know where all the emotional "buttons" are and like all human beings, we push them from time to time. It's what makes the journey interesting. We've had our battles but making up has always been more fun. And the most important thing we have learned is to respect each other, to trust that we will always put one another first, that somehow through all the difficult days there is one person who will still be standing beside me when everyone else has left the fray.

So I feel pretty good about having made it through another year with its ups and down, its joys and difficulties, its worries and happy times. When I look in the mirror and see the ravages that time has wrought, I wonder that he stays with me. But we know that we look at each other with the memories of our youth and we look at each other's heart--the deep connection that really can't be explained with words. It hasn't been a perfect marriage, but it has endured and, I think, is still pretty solid. "Lord, keep us safe and strong and close to one another and to You." Amen.