Enjoying dinner at a favorite spot – The Montecito Cafe. It’s POURING rain here, and this one was close and sheltered.
45 years ago today –
on a Saturday, too –
at 3:30 in the afternoon,
in the original sanctuary
of Glendale Presbyterian Church,
the one that separated ceiling from wall in the ’71 earthquake and had to be torn down, brick by brick, stone by stone….
two kids got married.
One was a senior at UCLA,
the other a recent grad of the same fine institution
and finishing his studies for an MBA at…USC.
They were excited, in love
and did not have a clue what they were getting into that afternoon.
An adventure, to be sure.
A challenge? Yes, indeed.
A lifelong partnership of give and take, push and pull, trial and error, laughter and tears, sickness and health, better and worse, richer and poorer (though that happened in reverse order, as it should!)
Would we do it again?
In a heartbeat.
Three amazing children,
three remarkable children-in-law,
8 outstanding grandkids,
each of whom has added richness and joy to our lives.
Along the way, we’ve also enjoyed and endured:
living cross-culturally in the 60’s for two years,
moving 9 times,
post-graduate studies for both of us and each of our kids,
9 hospitalizations in our immediate family
and about 15-20 in our wider family circle –
a few of them really serious health issues,
including 4 difficult deaths (both of our dads, our son-in-law and my brother).
Life is good and life is terrible,
love is easy and love is hard work,
God is near and sometimes distant, at least from our end of things.
We’ve asked hard questions of ourselves and each other,
we’ve learned to listen even when we didn’t feel like it,
we have a great mutual admiration society thing going,
and sometimes we’d like to take a long walk and not come back for a while.
But all of the time, ALL of the time – we rely on one another to be:
a best friend,
an honest responder,
a loyal defender,
a port in the storms of life.
The memories are rich, the laughter is real, as are the tears.
But…after all these years, I can honestly and thankfully say
that the joys more than balance out the sorrows and the struggles when the math is done.
I am grateful tonight for my husband,
for my marriage,
for my family.
Beautiful!