Remembering Our First Date

Beloved and Grateful Grammy in the college days

Today Beloved and I are celebrating 43 years since our first date.  I can't get my hands on the snapshot my mother took of us that day, but here is one taken at an ROTC ball on campus, just a few months after our wedding.

Our first date was two-fold, which worked out well on Labor Day weekend.  First I brought him along on a family picnic to a high mountain lake and then to the summit of one of our state's "fourteeners."  Then that evening we doubled with another couple in our church youth group to see the movie, "Camelot."

Of course there have been MANY changes since those days.  I won't go into that, which is so obvious. But I will say that we had to chuckle at ourselves this evening.  I got up to make myself a cup of hot tea (it's raining outside) and in rising from the sitting position I had to hobble for several steps due to a pesky sciatic nerve that hinders me much of the time.

A few minutes later Beloved was getting to a standing position from his chair and did his own version of the hobble dance with his knee that will be replaced in a few weeks.

Even with these bothersome physical hindrances, there is something oh-so-sweet about going through many years with the same man, changing from teenagers starting college to young marrieds, new parents, career successes, cross-country relocations, purchasing and selling houses, parenting teens, becoming in-law parents, then grandparenting....

"Our song" has been "Let It Be Me" by the Everly Brothers since 1969, the year we realized we had each found "the one" (and then married a year after that).  I truly do "bless the day" I found my man and at the same time thank our Heavenly Father for bringing us together and patiently working with us through the years.  We would be a sorry, sorry mess without God's blessings and mercies in our lives and on our marriage!