...And Forever

"For a day in His sight is like a thousand years,

And a thousand years but a day."

Forty eight years ago this weekend, the girl of my dreams placed her hand in mine and her life in my keeping. We recited some vows, signed some papers, and a man of God declared us to be husband and wife. 

We had only the vaguest ideas -- mostly wrong or misguided -- what the future held or what we were letting ourselves in for, only that we wanted to experience it together. So, with the confidence born of young love and youthful optimism, we became husband and wife. I have never been more proud. 

The ceremony remains as vivid as yesterday in my mind, the words of the vows we exchanged stronger than ever in memory. Surely, it was only yesterday. Surely, the calendar is wrong. Surely, forty-eight years have not come and gone since that evening. 

And yet they have. 

Forty-eight years filled with their own events, people, places, trials, and triumphs now exist only in memory. During that time we've learned to experience life together. We continue to learn. 

We neither know nor can imagine what the future will bring, but whatever comes to pass, we will face it together, as we have been doing for these last forty-eight years.

For the next forty-eight years... 

And forever.