June 24 Photo: On Your Mind

Today’s photo is another slight cheat, but again, for a very good reason: Today would have been my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary. Obviously, I wasn’t there at their wedding, so I didn’t take any photos. But that is definitely what is in the forefront of my mind today.

This is absolutely my favorite photo from my parents’ wedding album. Both my folks are so obviously glowing with excitement and happiness. And they are truly surrounded by family and friends. Unfortunately, the only groomsman I can identify is my mother’s brother, my Uncle John (the one wearing glasses). The women are, from left to right, my mother’s sister Elaine (who was only 16 at the time), my mother’s college roommate Myrna (the matron of honor), and my dad’s cousin Carolee (who, I believe, borrowed my mother’s wedding gown for her own wedding not long after).

I love the men’s white dinner jackets, the women’s perky little hats, the beautifully draping flowers, and my mom’s lace gauntlets and voluminous ball gown. I love her beaded pearl headpiece that I would wear (upside down and backwards) at my own wedding, nearly 45 years later. I love the familiarity of the backdrop, the room being the Ladies’ Parlor of the church I grew up in, with the same mirror, the same wing chair, and quite possibly the same curtains that were there during my childhood.

I love seeing them when they didn’t know what life had in store for them. When this picture was taken, they had no idea that they would have two daughters, or two grandchildren. They didn’t know that they would buy a house and live in it for their whole entire lives. They didn’t know that my dad would work for the same company for over 40 years, or that my mom would be a teacher, then a stay at home mom, then a children’s librarian. They didn’t know that their funerals would be held at the same church that they were married in, the same church that their children were raised in. They didn’t know that my mom’s dad would live with us for a year while suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, or that my dad would eventually need hospice care in our home, or that my mom would live in a hospice facility in the next town.

But they knew that they loved each other, and they knew that they could handle whatever life threw at them, with help from each other and from God.

I may not live long enough to be married for 50 years, either, but I know that with help from my husband and my God, I can handle anything that life may throw at me during whatever part of that 50 years I may have left. And that’s what’s on my mind today.