Today would have been our 56th Wedding Anniversary. We made it to 53. But today again fills me with joy to realize how little we knew of life, how little we really knew of each other or ourselves. And yet we made a life - a wonderful life - with our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, wonderful friends, shared faith. And because we were married to each other, we both became more than we could have become on our own - so I rejoice today that matrimony did what it is supposed to do: it opened us both to graces we never imagined in 1956.
The almond blossoms were blooming that late winter - and that's what we used for decorations - almond boughs, heavy with blossoms and fragrant, picked that very morning. For us, each spring, the almond blossoms brought us back to our beginnings.
And now I am living other new beginnings . . . in an unseasonably warm Michigan late winter. No blossoms here . . . but a spring of new hope, perhaps.
