“Thoughts on Our Forty-Ninth Wedding Anniversary”
I love my wife more than ever. I think that she has improved over time, but she was awful good, even when I married her. I think that the main reason I love her more is that I have improved. I suspect that nobody loves anybody because the one who is loved is better. No. If anybody loves anybody better, it is because the lover has grown.
I can think of 10,000 reasons why I married my sweetheart. I can only think of two reasons why she married me. The first is that she needed a fixer-upper to satisfy her creative instincts. She saw potential where it took a lot of guts to see. The second thing that I bring to the party is that I really and truly value her. I haven’t always shown that, but I think that she correctly intuited that I appreciated her. And I appreciate her more with each passing day.
To be young and in love is a wonderful thing. The poets and singers are right to praise such love. But to be old and more in love than ever is an even more wonderful thing.
Of course, as you grow older, your ways of expressing your love change a bit. Sharon demonstrated her love for me today by going to my Thursday morning senior softball game. I just learned today that my coach for the Thursday team and his wife (our score-keeper) were married on August 4 as well. They are celebrating sixty years of marriage. It makes me feel like a newlywed!
If I were asked the secret to a long and happy marriage, I would answer with a two-part response that sounds a little like a Buddhist koan: Marriage is an amazing free and gracious gift that requires incessant work. Today, I am most aware of the Gift. Tomorrow, I will get back to work.
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