Anniversary Relived

               Yesterday marked the 20^th year of my marriage with Roland.  You think a couple might want to spend their 20^th anniversary with some kind of milestone celebration.  But both of us managed to forget – and yet I had just mentioned it to Jenna the day prior.  And thus our anniversary was celebrated in the same manner that many birthdays and anniversaries have gone during the pandemic.  We labored. 

              We moved the freezer into the back room. We emptied the water barrel moved that as well.  Refilled with water. We unstocked and took apart shelves in the office and put a couple up in the backroom and one in the laundry hall and restocked them.  We finally did take a break between 10:30 and 11:00 to grab some food.  I had hoped for breakfast and NOT Mexican, but we ended up at a local Mexican that we had never tried. The food was good but the prices were a bit steep, I thought.  

We came home and continued with moving items and rested more.  We did set up the table in the back room and had moved a few chairs in this morning.  The shelves are stocked with games.  It looks much nicer.  I had gone to check facebook and was reminded that of my anniversary and “celebrations” in years past:

 Let us not forget that our initial marriage took place two days before the twin towers were bombed.  Thus our anniversary is celebrated simultaneously with 9/11.   On my 10^th anniversary I had gone to Mrs. Cavanugh’s with the 2^nd graders. My mom passed away the day after our 14^th. And yesterday . . . I put my arms around Roland and asked him if he knew what day it was.  He sheepishly guessed our anniversary.  We decided to count our expensive lunch as our 20^th anniversary celebration.

Speaking of 20^th – my sister, Kayla, and husband, Bill, have their wedding anniversary coming up on – you guessed it, the 20th of this month. I was hoping that one year we would/will be able to do a cruise in September to celebrate both of our anniversaries.  Disneyland would work as well as it will be dressed up for Halloween later on this month – or at least had done it mid-September in the past.  I don’t know how much COVID may have changed that.  Until this pandemic ends I do not wish to travel – even just to the Big City of Roseburg.

20 years.

Dash LF#6 Irma & Bob and Mom & Dad

           I loved my brother’s descriptions (here) of a couple who had lived in my mom’s ward for most of Corey’s life. I had known the family who had lived in the house before them.  Lily Black and I were very close friends – until after she moved and we had lost touch. 

          I don’t know if I was still in high school when Howards moved into the house where Blacks had lived.  I don’t recall how many children they had as Blaine was the only one living at home.  He had an older brother who was serving a mission.  I met him for the first time when I was going to Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho.  He had come to drop something off.  I don’t even remember what.  I recognized him as I thought he looked so much like his dad.

          I’m guessing that Bob and Irma were in their sixties when they had moved into our neighborhood.  Over the years we learned a bit about where they were from, how they met, why Bob’s speech sounded as though he were struggling to get the words out.  Everybody in the ward had to have known that they were from Logan and had been raised in much different generation in which things were always a certain way and there was no change.  They missed seeing the world evolve around them.

          But oh, what love and devotion each of them had for the other. We especially noticed it with Bob after Irma had surrendered her mind to Alzheimer’s.  She became fragile and he kept her at home and doted on her.  I did not see them so much after I got married, but had heard about how each of them was doing.

          My own parents saw the world differently.  They knew life outside of Logan, Utah.  They experienced change.  They were aware of diversity.  And they loved each other every bit as Bob and Irma loved one another.  Many years before Bob took care of Irma with her unstable mind, my mom had catered to my dad’s needs as his brain stopped sending signals to control his muscles.  Both couples experienced unconditional love for one another – the kind of love I would be willing to adapt into my own marriage.  Making our love stronger with each passing year and giving to one another more than 100%. 

April milestones

          It’s been just a few years since I wrote this post – referring to the stages of life and changes that we hope will never come.  Yet we are tried.  We can’t control what things might happen – good or bad.  For my oldest son’s in-laws, June is a hard month.

           

          For Roland’s family it seems to be April that seasons the time line.  His mom turned 92 yesterday.  Seven years ago we’d gone to Tucson to celebrate her birthday (here).  Nine days later, Roland’s eldest sister passed.  Today we learned that another sister died this morning.  Facebook reminders of two of my boys who married their wives in April.  

      Missionary papers and homecomings in April.  Jenna was also born in April.   This is my first recorded timeline.