A Long, Long Marriage

Last month in December of 2012 Teresa and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. It's one of the things I'm most pleased with and pleased by in my life, my marriage with this amazing woman. Glancing at other stats in my life, that one is a humdinger. My longest held job only clocks in at a about a quarter of that kind of time (5 1/2 years). I was in university studies far less, only about seven years.

A cool aspect of our wedding anniversary is that we were married on the 50th anniversary of my father's parents, Lewie & Jean Thomas, both still living in Snyder, Texas. And if you haven't already done the math in your head, this means they did indeed celebrate their 71st wedding anniversary last month.

71 years! Seventy-one years! Holy moley! Holy Longevity, Batman! That's way more astounding to me than chatting about tax rates and fiscal cliffs. Just to be honest. That is a lot of shared life. That is amazing to me. And of course, someone reading this may have grands who have been married longer... I'm not trying to win the longest-married-grands contest... but these ones are mine. They set a pace I'm scared to even try to keep up with.

Who knows if I'll even live to be in my 90's. Teresa will. She shares something with my grands that I never have: good, clean living. Me, I drink way too many sodas, eat too much sugar and exercise way less than I should. I'm also too attached to an occasional pipe, though I keep reading that my moderately imbibed port wine and cognac should be good for me.

Can I share one very personal thing that really kinda pulls my heart strings? When I call and chat with my grands, as I did on our shared anniversary, I can't help but notice that they can be a bit vague about some things. Dates and times can be a bit fuzzy with them. They don't always recall well the last conversation we shared. But you know what, they know exactly what is up with each other. It's as though their world is collapsing as the universe is expanding, but it's collapsing into one another. 

So I'm adding that to my personal definition of love. Love is when your best memory, your deepest clarity and most cherished thought is reserved for the other. At whatever point you began to share that with someone, I wish you all the best in maintaining it! Me, I'll try to make my grands proud, and if I live that long, I'll try to honor their legacy.

~Todd