Seventy Years and Counting...
It was the best sort invitation from a dear friend in Pennsylvania, asking me-and other friends- to send cards to her parents in April in celebration of their 70th wedding anniversary. Seventy years! It absolutely takes my breath away, especially since i will never even know the joy of celebrating 25 years with the same man. Seventy years! It nearly stops my heart to contemplate it... Two marriages have been part of my life...the first ending after a mere 12 years with the untimely death of my young husband at age thirty-seven; the second ending after 14 years with a divorce when that husband decided i was no longer the person to whom he wanted to be married. That marriage ended in 1994, and in the intervening years- seventeen years, to be exact- i have not been in a relationship with a man. Not complaining, you understand- just acknowledging. Sometimes the lack of a partner has been hard...and i have experienced a longing for which words seem inadequate- though as a...