50 Years of Love

October is the month my parents-in-love celebrate 50 years of marriage. In a world filled with individuals who have done what they want when they want and view commitment of any kind with contempt, this is an amazing milestone.   Fifty years is a long time.  Half a century has been spent living life together.  Ups and downs, sunshine and clouds, they have seen it all, together. 

Just for curiosity, I know it's difficult to believe that I was curious.  Anyway...just for curiosity I did an online search of the year these sweethearts were married.  What a tremendous amount of changes have taken place since 1960.  In 1960, JFK was being advertised as the best man to be president, pressed ham sandwiches were 30 cents, women wore hats and gloves to town, and Jerry Lee Lewis rattled the keyboard with Great Balls of Fire.  Meals were cooked mostly from scratch and eaten as a family around the table at home.  Audrey Hepburn was the image seen on a number of ladies' magazine covers; her sleek sense of style literally filled the fashion talk that year. 

If we were to ask couples whose marriages have spanned 50 years or more about what has taken place during all those years together I imagine the answers we would receive would feature very little of the fashions of the day, politics, or even music.  Most likely, we would hear stories of babies being born, children growing up, and other episodes of life at home with family, friends, and loved ones. 
I know how the experiences of life throughout the past 19 years of marriage have strengthened and deepened the love between My Beloved and me.  Such a love that must be formed during fifty years spent together as man and wife!  What marvelous memories to treasure have been made.  How much wisdom they must have to share.

Congratulations, parents-in-love.  I pray that the next 50 years are even sweeter than those already past have been.