One Is Just A Number

I’m getting better about not getting stuck on dates. I don’t dread approaching days for their significance like I did in the early years of my separation and divorce. That’s why when I realized the significance of February 13, 2013, I was surprised it hadn't dawned on me sooner and a little proud of myself that I hadn’t circled the date in black on every calendar I owned Twenty years ago on February 13, X asked me to marry him.   It was 8 months to the day of our first date and he thought, “If I give her an engagement ring on the 13 th , I bet I won’t have to buy her anything for Valentine’s Day.” We had talked about marriage but he hadn’t proposed formally. He kept telling me that he was still saving for a ring. So when we drove to the golf course where we’d shared our first kiss, I had no clue that once we climbed the fence, he would pull a black velvet box out of his coat pocket and tell me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. X and I traded emails on that ...

Today my parents' are celebrating their 54th wedding anniversary. Every year my sister and I tell them they should go out just the two of them but they insist on us accompanying them to dinner, usually at Olive Garden. All day long I've been marveling at that - 54 years together. They've raised two daughters, lost four parents, and prayed in hospital waiting rooms while waiting to hear if surgeries were successful. My mother drove my father to daily radiation treatments for cancer. After all of this, 54 years of the ebb and flows of life, they still hold hands as they walk together, their lives linked together as tightly as their clasped fingers. I have friends who are also celebrating their wedding anniversary today. Twenty-five years and three children together, one of which has been a special-needs child since before her first birthday when she suffered a brain infection. Through all the struggles of that challenging life, they are still in love. Last fall ...