Fifty Years

There was a time 

There was a time when artist’s touch

Inspired the leaves to scent of musk

When poet’s rhyme brought lover’s home

– inspired the couple’s love-sought poem.

There was a time when your embrace

Gave faint my heart to beat again;

When one soft look – a keen reply

– bought  love’s long ardor with one sigh.

There was a time when love’s desire

lay fast upon my lips.

When tender touch anticipated –

 yearned  for your embrace

But now, my love, ‘tis something new

as I long linger – gaze at you.

With artist’s eye and poet’s heart;

I still adore you, as the start.

By Annette Gagliardi

My husband and I will be celebrating 50 years of wedded bliss in a couple of weeks.  He jokes that it is,  “Fifteen of the happies years of his life” and I will counter with “Five for me.”

Of course, it’s a joke, but there is a kernel of meaning as well.

            We used to speak for the Catholic archdiocese Cana program on marriage. We spoke to engaged couples for over twenty-five years, rolling with the change of partnering couples and finally stopping when the program went to another format. One of the jokes we made as we introduced ourselves was this one about how many years were the happiest.

When we told the joke, we then talked about how the light of first love may go out, and that is when the marriage begins. When we can stick together even in the unhappy years, that is true love. There have been years that we could only work to survive life – working full time jobs, raising our four girls and maintaining the house. It was all we could do to just keep going, yet we looked at each other across the room and sighed. “We’ll get through this.“

            When we were engaged, we were young and beautiful, fit and able. We didn’t ask, “will you love me when I get old and fat? when I fart, burb and snore? when my boobs droop and my belly bulges? when the hair on my chin is more plentiful than the hair on my head? When I repeat the same story twelve times or forget your many, numbered needs?

       Engaged couples are misty eyed by the fresh love of youth. Yes, I know there are older folk who get married, and they share much of that same mist of first love. But fifty years takes the staying power to love even when you have fallen out of ‘like’, even when your spouse pisses you off on a regular basis, and you wage a cold war for seven years just to get a new refrigerator, for goodness sake.

            Fifty years means raising your family, keeping your house a home, and having each other’s back during the chaos and the drama that raising kids and keeping a house entails. It’s as much about endurance as anything. If your marriage is anything like ours has been, ‘it never rains, but it pours‘ rings true–Chaos begets more chaos.

            I don’t know what makes happiness in a marriage. I think we have been as happy as most couples who survived for the long haul.  We try to take daily walks together, but seldom spend the time in discussion. My spouse likes a quiet stroll, hand-in-hand in quiet observance and contemplation. The security of his hand holding mine — okay, and his help in getting to the top of some of the hills, is a blessing and comfort to me. We gaze at the planes passing overhead and notice the change of area fowl and foliage as we go along. Tim finds the frequent coinage as well. And the whole family plays this ‘found coinage’ game.

            Many couples do athletic activities together and we started our marriage running together, but soon dropped that. Then we played tennis until I got good enough to be mad about my mistakes. We biked and skied awhile, as well. Now-a-days we attend baseball games, take walks and my husband plays golf. We are more slowly paced in our athletic pursuits.

In these most recent years, we have been lucky and healthy enough to take three really fabulous trips. We went on a 28 day adventure with our good friends Len & Paquita Beans, sailing the Aegean sea, roaming Crete and celebrating the Hogueras (Festival of San Juan) in Spain. What a trip. Our priest, Fr. Park led us through Italy along the Amalfi coast and to visit the Pope in Rome, then a couple years later we toured Israel and followed in the footsteps of Jesus. Both trips were so inspiring and valuable. They brought us together in a new way.

            Finding leisurely things to do together has never been our strong suit. We have worked together through the whole marriage and laugh at the many years we were painting, moving someone, or doing construction on our anniversary. It has been a good life and we both feel fortunate to have so many blessings. Our four daughters, our seven grands, plentiful extended relatives and many friends keep us busy and grateful.

            We also have been fortunate to have small health problems that are managed through the miracle of modern medicine. So, fifty years have flown by. I don’t know how we got this old so quickly.

            The other day, as my daughters sat around the table to help plan our celebration, I said, “We’re ready to go another fifty years”.  Our girls laughed and said, “You probably better shoot for twenty-five instead.”  It’s a real deal.

My cousin, Jacki reminded me of one of my favorite Bible verses that really says it all about love. Thanks, Jacki.

^4 eLove is patient and ^fkind; love ^gdoes not envy or boast; it ^his not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It ⁱdoes not insist on its own way; it ^jis not irritable or resentful;^2 6 it ^kdoes not rejoice at wrongdoing, but ^lrejoices with the truth. ^7 mLove bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, ^eendures all things.

⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For ⁿwe know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but ^owhen the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹² For ^pnow we see in a mirror dimly, but ^qthen face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as ^rI have been fully known.

¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

This is found at: https://biblia.com/books/esv/1Co13.4