Happy Anniversary -- Milestones and Personal Priorities

Today my wife and I have been married – to each other – for 26 years.

So many things had to occur exactly as they did just for she and I to have come together in the first place that I cannot believe our marriage was the result of random happenstance. No, my sense of things is that ours was, for all intents and purposes, an arranged marriage. That's right, God had it in for us all along.

We met at a university that I had not even planned on attending until the last minute. We ran in different circles, connected only loosely by a common acquaintance or two. She was Lutheran; I was Catholic. She was raised in the country; I grew up eight blocks outside of Chicago.

By the end of her senior year, we remained nothing more than casual acquaintances and she had become engaged to somebody else to boot.

Then things got interesting. 

One night in the fall of 1982, an engaged girl from Kenosha, Wis., found herself in the same place at the same time as this boy from Blue Island, Ill. A handful of my friends and I, with no particular place to go, arranged to meet at a small, quiet drinking establishment off campus and she was invited to tag along.

In retrospect, this may have been the first time we were ever in the same room at the same time for more than an hour. In any case, our chance encounter began with polite conversation and ended with a kiss that ultimately changed everything. To this day I am not sure how it happened or why. I am only too grateful that it did happen.

As you might guess, we began to see more and more of each other. By the time she graduated, in December of 1982, my “new interest” had broken off her engagement with the other gentleman. She remained in Milwaukee for one more semester to look for work, but having found none, she moved home to Kenosha in the spring of 1983. I graduated in May and having no job prospects in Milwaukee, returned home to Blue Island.

Everybody knows that most long distance relationships become problematic over time so it would not have surprised anybody if our courtship had petered out within a year or so. But it didn't.

I burned countless tanks of gasoline driving to and from Kenosha on weekends. Our relationship continued to grow. On Nov. 23, 1984, we became engaged and on Oct. 5, 1985, we were married.

What a wedding it was! We were married at Friedens Lutheran Church, which today still looks much like it did then. After doing a photo shoot at a lakefront park, we made our entrance at the Spaghetti Station, an Italian establishment in Kenosha that unfortunately closed years ago. Our guest list numbered in the hundreds. With a sizable buffet, open bar and live music, we ate, drank and danced the night away.

We honeymooned at Disney World and enjoyed every minute of our trip. After we returned home to the real world, we tried not to let the fun stop. We have always found time to laugh, to smile, to just be with each other.

Don't get the idea that this has been a breeze. There have been rough times, to be sure. We've been through financial troubles, work issues, personal struggles and more. We have had our disagreements. We raised two children and had disagreements with them, too. I'm pretty sure we experienced all of the usual struggles that accompany parenting. Somehow, we were all OK with that.

We survived – as individuals, as a couple and as a family. Why? Not being an authority on marital relationships, I cannot say for sure. Maybe real love allows one to relish every moment, in good times and bad. Maybe real love empowers us with the fidelity and determination – sometimes the sheer will – it takes to persevere and keep it all together.

Twenty-six years later, we're still having the time of our lives. This fall marks a major adjustment for us, as we now have both kids in college for the first time. We will have no money to speak of for the next five years or so, but that's nothing new. The challenge will be re-learning to function in the absence of both our son and daughter.

Perhaps an added challenge will be accepting the fact that each of them will gradually learn to function with less input from their mom and dad.

Today my wife and I set out on our 27th year of wedded bliss. If the first 26 have been any indication, this ought to be a real hoot.