Sixteen good ones I wouldn’t trade for anything
Posted on November 13, 2007 in Personal thoughts by DM
Last Friday was our 16th wedding anniversary. We celebrated with a nice dinner out at The Big Steer in Altoona and then drinks with friends.
Our wedding in 1991 was a very casual event - we were married and had our reception in the clubhouse of a local apartment complex, with music by a local DJ and food prepared by us. We spent about a thousand dollars on the whole thing, and by all accounts everyone had a great time even without the fancy trimmings or elaborate procedures. To give you an idea of our tastes at the time, we “walked in” to the song “To the Aisle” by the Five Satins and “walked out” to “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin. It was just a fun party, a perfect way to get all our friends and family together to celebrate the fact that we were taking our “living together arrangement” to the level of lifetime commitment.
Since that day, we’ve certainly had our share of ups, downs, sweet milestones and even natural disasters. I think what the last 16 years has taught me more than anything is that you don’t really don’t know anything about the world until you spend some time with a person whose life experience is much, much different from your own. I am so fortunate that my husband is the man he is: 12 years older than me, grew up poor in a hard-working family with four kids and a tiny house, hated school, served in Viet Nam as a United States Marine, held a variety of jobs including police chief, studio photographer, television engineer, auto dealer, married and divorced (more than once) with children, conservative, stubborn, pessimistic… yet selfless, honest, patriotic and true. You don’t spend 16 years with a guy like that and NOT learn that there’s more to life than just the way you grew up.
Steve has spent the past several years watching his sisters celebrate their 25th and 30th wedding anniversaries. I tease him that he has been married 30 years too, but his is a cumulative total rather than consecutive. (He returned the sentiment by giving me a giant tub of cheese balls as an anniversary present. Who knew that the traditional gift for Year 16 was “artificial flavoring”!?)
Hang in there, Honey… only 9 more years and you’ll get a real 25th anniversary. I love you more than I can say.
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Awe… It is truly a great blessing to be able to see two people so in love and perfect for each other. Sometimes all we can say is “God bless the broken road, that lead me strait to you.”
Hey girl, thank you for the sweet note.
~ Janet