A Silver Anniversary

Happy silver anniversary to the best parents and the most beautiful souls.

As I’ve grown older you’ve shared more and more stories of your relationship. How you met will always be my favorite especially the part where dad went to Grandma Dell and said “I found the woman I’m going to marry”. But the more recent stories you’ve shared with me, the things I never knew until now, about the way you have always supported each other and made each other better people, fall among some of the best I’ve heard. Even better than any Nicholas Sparks novel you could ever read, because these are real.

Your relationship is the perfect example of friendship; I see this every time we are on the boat, the most compatible Captain and first mate, and when mom dances around the house for attention and dad either joins in or just laughs along with her.

The perfect example of true love; still holding hands, going on dates and celebrating Hallmark holidays, and how dad always buys you cards (even though you pretend you think cards are a waste of money) I know that you love each and every long, drawn out, handwritten note inside of them, no matter how cheesy it may be.

And the perfect example of commitment; I would be naïve to believe that every relationship is perfect, there are always bumps in the road. But I’ve never seen either of you try to take separate roads when the one that you were on got bumpy. You sat down and talked it out and worked through it. I never saw you go to bed angry, I never saw you not speaking to each other, I never saw selfishness. I’ve only ever seen your commitment to each other and to your family.

I can only hope that I turn out to be half the woman that my mother is and find a man as great as my father. And one day I hope that I’ll be watching my wedding video on the couch (maybe with my kids) the night before my anniversary, just like we did last night, thinking “wow, I can’t believe that was 25 years ago.”
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Happy 25th wedding anniversary and here’s to many more.

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