NaBloPoMo #28 - Years

(c) 2010 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

We get our local paper on Friday, Saturday & Sunday. In them, they have a feature called "Special Moments," which is where they have all the engagement, wedding & anniversary pictures and such.

I love that this feature usually includes some milestone anniversaries - 40s, 50s, 60s, etc. I think marriages are dang hard work, and that is it lovely to recognize couples who have stuck it out so many years together. They have, most likely, dealt with challenges like children, health issues, empty nest, job issues, money concerns, and a whole host of other stressors.

And yet these couples are still together. Now, I'm not saying that every marriage is going to be one for the ages. Sometimes there are truly insurmountable issues, and the marriage dissolves... but I really think and hope that those can be the minority.

But what I really, really love - what keeps me searching out this feature week after week, paper after paper - is when those milestone anniversary notices include pictures. When they include photos both from today as well as from when they got married.

I love comparing those two pictures. Seeing in in the tilt of the head or the smile on the face how it really is the same person, even though separated by years and life experience. Sometimes the hairstyle is virtually identical. Sometimes the glasses are only minorly updated. Heck, sometimes the hair is gone completely, or the chins are doubled, or the years have really taken their toll.

But still, so many times, the love that was there in the early photograph, the love that showed through in the pride the couple took in each other, in the joy of their wedding, in the way they angled their bodies toward each other, is still there in the later pictures. They tilt their heads just a bit toward each other, they share a similar expression, or stand just as close as they used to, back when they were young.


In honor of all those couples, and their pictures, I'd like to say, "Happy Belated 10th Anniversary" to my own sweetheart, and an additional "Congratulations" to both our sets of parents on their 40th anniversaries this year.

And if you're lucky enough to have somebody with whom you'd like to share a picture 10, 20, 30, 50 years down the road, think of this the next time you're feeling the hard work part of marriage, and give him or her an extra kiss tonight.