Sixty-three and Counting

As my mother recalls it, this was taken in San Francisco in 1947, while my father was still in the Navy. This would have been 2 years after their marriage on June 22, 1945. They look so young; well, they were: she was maybe 21 and he was 23. They look so happy... and thin (I always wondered why I had ended up so thin as a child, pretty obvious, isn't it?Itt was in them genes). The ship my father was on docked periodically in San Francisco for a few days, and mom would go up and meet him.

They have had such a good marriage, an example to us all of how to be wife and a husband. Some of us were thinking that maybe there would be no more anniversaries after my mom’s accident, but she came home today from the nursing home. I was so pleased to talk to her on the phone and hear about my brother and his wife serving them a special dinner to celebrate their 63rd anniversary -- a double celebration!

Earlier in the year, a woman they were in line with at the checkout counter commented how happy they seemed together and how loving they were to each other. The glow that is on their faces in this picture never faded.