Another year

Well, Alan and I are celebrating another year together -- we will have been married (tomorrow August 27, 2010) for 44 years.

It was a lovely, almost fall-like day. It was one of the happiest days of my life, and one I had dreamed about for several years. We were engaged for only a year -- the longest year of my life in some respects, but the shortest in others.

I remember when I told my mom the date we had set. We had been engaged for several months and hadn't decided on a date. We knew we wanted to get married while Alan's parents were on furlough from a missionary stint in Kenya, and that end-date hadn't been set yet, but we knew they would be returning to Kenya in early fall. We also knew we wanted to be married before he started his junior year at Rutgers because we needed to line up student housing. So mom should have known that we'd be getting married some time in late summer of 1966.

Well, I came home from a date with Alan, and he had told me he had gotten us student housing and we would get married two weeks before school started and would start paying rent on our housing in early August, getting married in late August, 1966. Mom got this news in late March 1966 and told me it would be impossible to get a wedding ready in six months. I told her it wouldn't.

I'm very organized, and I had a list of things to do before I got married, and mom didn't even have to do anything but give me names for invites. By the time the next week was out I had purchased my wedding gown and veil and shoes. I had decided on my bridesmaids. Arranged for a date at the bridal shop in Runnemede to purchase bridesmaids gowns, purchased my invitations, arranged for a cake and caterer, and thought I was all set.

Then mom dropped the bomb. She said I hadn't asked to use the church. Excuse me? Dad was the preacher. I knew the date was open and no one else was getting married (in the church family) that date. She said I still had to formally ask to use the church. I felt so silly doing that. So, I wrote a note to the deacons and trustees requesting the use of the church for that date. I knew mom was putting me on, because I knew that when people wanted to get married, they only had to ask my father to use the church and they got married. But mom was adamant that I was to ask permission from the "powers that be". Dad had already given his permission and written the date on his calendar.

I waited on tender hooks for several weeks, asking the head of the trustees each Sunday if I they had decided I could use the church. Believe me, by the time I finally got permission, I was about to find another church in which to have the wedding. They were all pulling my leg, and it wasn't a leg I wanted pulled. I wasn't amused by the joke they were all pulling on me.

Other than that little bauble, the wedding went off without a hitch. And we lived happily ever after. Yeah, right. However, I have to say, that I remember the good times more than the bad times, and while Alan and I "fight," it's really our way of communicating, a way our children can't understand.

Do we still love each other? You bet we do. And it seems that we are getting nearer to our "first love" feelings the older we get. I guess it's because we know that today might be our last day together on this earth. Ouch! Did I really say that?

Well, we are getting older and older and older and more frail as the days progress. Time is flying by and can you believe it's almost Christmas again? So, we make sure we greet each other in the a.m. with an "I love you" and end each day with an "I love you," praying that we'll both see each other in the morning.

We won't do anything to "celebrate" our anniversary. We've tried for the past few years to do something special but something always comes up and interferes, so this year we're just going to REMEMBER the day. Look at our album. And relax.

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