Anniversary May 17, 1978

As of May 17 we will have been married 32 ...
I look back to when we got married...

times were tough and jobs scarce but we survived...

I had moved to Lawton, OK with some friends of mine

when the money ran out my friends did too..

So here I was in a city I knew no one and I was very lonely and depressed...

I prayed for God to send me someone and I met my husband the next week...

We met in Jan and got married in May...we met at a Christian singles party where only

three of us had never been married and the other gal was engaged...

So hubby asked me out for coffee then he said "By the way you have to drive...I don't have a car nor a license"

I found out later he had wrecked his sisters car and had two DUI tickets...fortunately for us he quit drinking after that...

But we plunged into marriage with great expectations...

We would be happily ever after...we would have a BIG house, BIG cars, lots of land and lots of children...isn't that what most young people do?? Look forward to have a happily ever after life..

Little did we know what lay in store...

Lets see I could go into the infertility quest...with tests, drs visits, operations etc and still no child...or the adoption games where we would apply time after time and have them call us and say they have a child for us only to call again and say they changed their minds...

Or how about becoming the parent to the parent?? We never imagined my parents would become elderly and old and need the help they needed...Nor can I imagine how I did what I did for them...

Their have been money problems, job problems, acts of God (like recently to where we need repairs to both the house and the cars), and now we are looking at our retirement years ourselves...

Without children we have to decide now just how we will survive without the other one if something should happen since we do not have family...Or how we will spend our Sr years...

I look back on life and our marriage and life is short...32 yrs seems like a long time but it hasn't been it seems like just yesterday we were looking at the blissful life...

I once heard someone say...It is not the date of birth or the date of death but the dash inbetween that is what is important...

I hope to have 32 more years with my husband but if not then I know life will go on and I will go on and it is the precious memories that we cherish and look back on...

Yes I would have wanted the big house and the house full of children however if I had the big house I would have not had the memories of rebuilding the old house on Shartel or repairing our hail damaged roof and if I had the house full of children then I could not have honestly say that our marriage is not just held together for the sake of the children.. and I would not have the memories of my lovely husband holding me in his arms when I cried so desperately for the child that we did not have....If I had not had elderly parents I would not have known how he would tell me "Its OK spend time with your Mom she will not be here forever" or how he would have our Lunch ready after I took Mom to church or how he

said it was OK for Dad to live with us for a year and that he would say "yes bring your mother home for the Holidays.." Knowing that she could barely walk and was constantly depressed and forgetting even simple tasks...

He has been the best husband in the world.