This will be a subdued affair. She had eye surgery earlier this week and is making an aching, sometimes painful recovery. She is, thank God, recovering, though.
This week has given me the opportunity to explore that "in sickness and health" bit from our vows in 1973, when I was barely 20 and she was 18.
When you are that young, you say the words, meaning them, but likely not apprehending them. In the years since, both of us have come to understand them a bit more.
It has been my honor this week to keep her on her post-op med schedule, help her bathe (rrrruff!), and fix (not nearly as good as her's) meals and serve her in whatever other ways come up.
This is a fractional payback for all the times she has nursed me, during two major operations, a few minor ones, double-pnemonia, and more recently, the post-layoff blues.
So, usually we celebrate. Flowers, dinner or show, a nice trip, etc. This year, I have the privilege and the blessing of giving my best friend, lover and much better half a tiny bit of grace, love and I hope, comfort.
In that way, it might, at least from my part of this lifetime together, be the most loving of our share milestones.
It has been a tough year, in terms of changes and expectations. But that's life. And, we have been blessed with adequate financial prep, fortuitous (providential?) timing on retirement and medical coverage benefits when the employment hammer landed in May.
Yes, this quiet, understated 45th anniversary may be the most precious ever.
I know this: gray, wrinkled as I am, when I look in Barbara's eyes (yes, even the red one with bruising around the eye socket), I see the girl I married Sept. 1, 1973, in Spokane, Wash.
And I never stop marveling that she actually said, "I will."
