I first published this piece several years ago on the occasion of our 40th anniversary. Today is our 47th anniversary but I couldn’t think of anything better to say, so here it is again. The photo above was taken in 1974, the year we first went to Paris.
She is my hero, and my heart. I met her when I was 16. I married her when I was 22, forty years ago today. First, she was my high school girlfriend, then my college sweetheart, then my wife, then mother of our children, then doting grandmother of our grandchildren. Marrying her was the only decision in my life I have never doubted or regretted. I mean it, the only decision. The only piece of jewelry I have ever worn is the gold wedding ring I bought for $37 in 1973. It is my proudest possession. She is most things I am not─tenacious, organized, ambitious, driven to excel, practical, and keenly sensitive to what is appropriate. While I plunge toward the horizon with slight regard to risk, she sensibly hugs the coastline. In Life, she creates lines then colors magnificently within them. (I can’t even keep my crayon on the paper!) She thrives on socializing, never met a party she didn’t like. (I am not anti-social, but I do confess to being a tad unsocial.) She is a nester. She is sustained by the closeness of family and friends. She likes being surrounded by good stuff, her stuff. Part of my joy in spending 3/4ths of my life with her is the privilege of having watched her grow from a girl into a woman. She was a high school cheerleader. (I still have her megaphone in my office.) She was a coed, an office assistant, a teacher. As self conscious as she still is, she has blossomed into a fabulous speaker and marketing executive. I guarantee she is the only Vice President in America who has designed her own house and who camps out with her grandchildren on sleepover nights. She never takes shortcuts. In high school, I often copied her math homework but she would never, ever, copy my homework. (There is a message in there.) She kills herself trying to accommodate everyone. She works harder than anyone I know, too hard, driven by demons I have never experienced. I suspect she is still trying to prove she belongs, although that game was over long ago. She belongs. She is generous, constant, and tenderhearted, all qualities that brought us together in the first place. She loves movies, as I do. (We have seen so many movies together, whenever I start to recite some movie dialogue, she completes the line!) She loves great art and travel. She laughs at my jokes. She once jumped into a barroom fight to defend me. (I would have taken the guy by myself, honest.) I have known her for nearly half a century and I still enjoy talking to her. Best of all, she loves me. When we were first married, we lived on my $109 weekly paycheck and banked her $86 paycheck. We were saving up for a delayed honeymoon in Europe. Our parents felt it would have been more practical to spend our savings on a house. But we were young romantics. What was a mortgage compared to Paris? As it turned out, the three months we spent together in Europe in 1974 set the stage for the next four decades of our marriage. Forty years! And I feel as if we are just getting started. In 11 days, I will be returning to the City of Light with the woman I love. Just Paris. Just us. Just imagine.