Forty years we have been married!  I was just 17 when we met, he was 21.  In a nutshell, we spent every minute together of that first three weeks after meeting.  It was an intensive, accelerated summer romance. Then he proposed.

We knew we would be separated by distance.  He had a year long contract in the Middle East to fulfill.  I was about to start University.

Before he asked the question, I remember walking on the beach one night, holding hands.  I had a strong vision of an old married couple doing the same thing.  Somehow I knew it was us.  I had found my best friend that summer. Somehow I knew to trust myself and hang on.

We would spend the first year of our engagement in different countries,  We were about as far apart physically as we would ever be.

This was a time long before cell phone and facebook had made it possible to communicate.  At $8 per minute, even phone calls were a luxury, so we wrote.  Every day, we would talk about our lives, although looking back at it, it is really funny to see more “I Love You’s” scrawled across the pages than any substance to what was happening in our days.

This is what young love is, pure passion.  Yet there has always been something deeper with Alan and I.  Even in those early moments, if one of us had a headache, the other was experiencing the same.  Our roots have always intertwined until we could no longer tell where one of us starts and the other ends.  We are symbiotic.

We were married just 18 months after meeting for the first time.  Since then there have been 3 children, all boys.  We have had 3 cats and 2 dogs, numerous fish and a couple of lizards.  We have been self employed for most of these years.

So now it is forty years later and we are indeed that old couple walking hand in hand on the beach.

What would my letter look like to him today?  What do you say to someone who is your entire world?  To that person who knows you almost as well as you know yourself? What do you say to a man who has held steadfastly to love and upheld ever vow he made?

If I would write a letter today, I would still probably fill it with “I love you’s” but there would be so much more depth to the words as we both reflect what they really mean.

I often ponder what wisdom I can offer young couples.  I think the most profound thought is that the words “I do” are very simple, but you can never really understand what it is to be a committed partner.

I do means you will still cherish the person, even on the days you don’t like them.

I do means you will stand by through the most difficult of challenges…babies, teenagers, menopause/manopause, job loss, career changes, financial challenges, body changes, illness…

I do means a respect an honor of the relationship.

I do means you will endure and endear through it all.

So today, as we celebrate our Ruby Anniversary, I am told that Rubies are as precious as diamonds.  I believe this.  We are so lucky to be here.  We have been gifted 40 wonderful years together.

We skipped out of the church on our wedding day, we have overcome many of life’s challenges and somehow we came through it all.

The rest of the journey seems easy now.

Today we celebrated under the Marquee…him saying he wanted me to “see my name in lights”.  I am incredibly blessed by this man.  After 40 years, he is still my best friend. What an amazing adventure we have had together.