The 40th Wedding Anniversary

Forty years, it amazes me. I know when I married at the age of 21 that I had no thoughts beyond loving Dan and being ready to start the next phase of my life with him.  I have a vivid memory of the early months as we learned, conversation by conversation, how we wanted to handle money, communicating about social plans, housework, and exploring our future goals. These events occurred as often by one of us breaking some unknown family rule and the often confusing conversation following it. Luckily, acknowledging our differences gave us a safe baseline to create our own family rules.

As I look back, I realize the bottom line is time flew by.  I have become totally enamored with the stages of life. We had a great eight years as a double income, no children, couple. We got to know each other, played hard and vacationed well. I finished my master's degree and got my license as a clinical social worker. After twenty years with two children at home, we briefly had the empty nest. It disappeared in two years with moving my dad in followed by moving Dan's mom in. We discovered the joys, sorrows, and importance of becoming an extended family. I understood loving deeply and profoundly through that experience.  There is nothing like witnessing death to inform a couple on making commitments.

We are committed to each other. The more important something is to me, the more important it is to Dan and vice versa.  I love how well we play together, enjoy our home, and work on our relationship.  Whether we are arguing about our priorities and differences, we work it out and try to honor both of our needs.

Now we get to share all those years with amazing adult children, their wives, and our grandchildren.