Fifty Years is a Long Time to Be Married

Good Sabbath to you.

This weekend has been a very meaningful one for my family. Today is my parents' 50th wedding anniversary.

My siblings and I are spread out, living in five different states. I happen to live in the same Utah town as my parents, as do two of my siblings, but the other five drove and flew in for the surprise party (that's eight kids, in case you didn't do the math). My parents had no idea we were scheming up a party for them. One of my sisters-in-law baked a wedding cake to match the one my parents had at their reception and drove it in from Nevada. A sister in Kansas collected letters from every member of the family. A brother in Colorado put together a slide presentation from the past 50 years of family living and another brother put together music from the 40's and 50's to play at the party. My niece, who just became an official wedding planner did the decorations and I baked 4 pans of enchiladas for the 30 guests.

Mom and Dad had the surprise of their lives when they discovered all eight of their children came to town to celebrate their anniversary. The party was a big success and Mom said if she'd planned it herself she wouldn't have done anything differently.

There is nothing like being with family. Friends come and go but family is enduring. Everyone in my family loves to laugh, and when we're together someone is always cracking a joke. It got pretty goofy towards the end of the evening, but it left a warm after-glow. We had the usual sibling rivalries growing up, but now, as adults, we are great friends and enjoy being together.

My parents provided a wonderful home environment for their children. They were a united front. I really had an ideal upbringing. They raised us to be independent and hard-working. We girls learned homemaking skills and most of us started working at age 16, even though most of us didn't drive before we graduated high school. That tells you how much taxiing my parents did. They also provided us with music lessons and we had a little family band.

Being married for 50 years is a big deal. Doing anything for 50 years is a big deal, but with so many marriages dissolving so quickly, those marriages that endure ought to be even more applauded.

This doesn't have much to do with writing, but maybe it can serve as a reminder to us about the importance of our families. Don't neglect them. They won't always be around.

Happy writing.