Anniversaries

This was a weekend for celebrating anniversaries.  It began on Friday as we celebrated our 39th year of marriage.  Yesterday we celebrated family as we held our first "official" family reunion.  It was also my great-niece Ansley's first birthday.  Another reason to celebrate.  And it marked two years since Daddy left us for his eternal home. 

Anniversaries are important for a couple of reasons.  They are a time to look back.  To reflect on events past, on accomplishments, on the good times - and the not so good - that define who we are at this particular moment in time.  They are also a reason to look forward. To anticipate more good things in the future.  Anniversaries mark milestones in this journey we call life.  In ancient cultures, significant events were marked with standing stones as memorials to those events.  Anniversaries are like those standing stones.  They are a time for remembering.  They are markers of significant events.

Thirty-nine years ago, Al and I stood before each other in a beautiful candle-lit church to declare our love for each other and to make a covenant together to share our lives........for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health.  And in these years together, there has been some of all of that.  Probably a lot more poorer than richer!!  Back in the seventies when we married, we were singing along with Karen Carpenter as we drove away from the church......."We've Only Just Begun".  That's still the theme song around here.  As we're growing older together, the old saying still holds true for us:  grow old with me, the best is yet to be!

As we celebrated family yesterday, I couldn't help missing my parents so much.  Mother has been gone for more than 10 years now, and Daddy only two years, but they both would have been thrilled to see their children, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren spending time together.  There was a lot of laughter yesterday as we shared memories and made new ones.  And in the finest Austin tradition, we ate!  Mother and Daddy would have loved it.

I'm thinking a lot about Daddy this morning.  Two years ago today I got that phone call I had been dreading.  The one that said Daddy had been found on the floor by his bed, that he had passed the previous afternoon.  It still bothers me that we didn't know until the next day.  That he was alone.  At the time, the pastor of his church kept reminding me that he was not alone, that Jesus had promised never to leave or forsake him, and that even in death, He was there with Daddy.  I understand all that theologically.  But it still bothers me.

My daddy was, as I am, very much a creature of habit.  His morning routine began with his coffee and his Bible.  And he always read from the Open Windows devotional book.  As we gathered at his house to make arrangement for his funeral service, his Bible and devotional book were on the table next to his chair, open to the passage he had read on his last day in this life.  It's what always comes to mind as I remember this day because it so perfectly describes my daddy.  And while I miss both my parents terribly, this is their legacy to me and the hope I have of seeing them again.......

"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.  For ye are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then ye shall also appear with him in glory."  (Colossians 3:2-3 KJV)