Happy Birthday Bob! My husband turns 83 today. My favorite term for him is “Old Man,” but then I began using that term when he turned 30, while I was still a youngster at 23!
He walked into my life when I was 13. Arrayed in his Marine Dress Blue uniform he had come to take his then-fiancé to her high school graduation. I was babysitting her two little brothers. He never married her, getting one of those “Dear Bob” letters when he was overseas.
After coming back to California, his ex-fiancé’s mother pointed him my way. That was mid-August 1966. On September 9, he asked me to marry him, and we were married in April 1967.
I always joke that “it is only the grace of God that can keep you married when you are married to the wrong man!”
That is a joke, but it is also true. We are nothing alike! He’s outdoorsy, I’d rather be inside. He likes to hunt and fish; I’d rather read and crochet. He hates being “upfront,” and that is where I have spent a lot of my life. We are just very different people. (The one thing we do well together is love our kids and grandkids, our friends, and our church family.)
It is no joke, however, that the grace of God has kept us together for almost 56 years. It is no joke that God’s grace has brought us through many difficulties, trials, hard times and even good times. His grace has been and still is the glue that keeps us going. We have seen “for better and worse,” and “richer and poorer” many times. Now we live in the “sickness and health” part of life. And still, it is His grace.
But, oh man as I think back, that “Old Man” sure did look good in his Marine Dress Blues!
