When You’ve Been Married 52 Years

When you’ve been married for 52 years, you will look back and wonder where the time has gone. Of course, the years were busy . . . with children and homework, soccer practices and dance lessons, geography tests and bake sales. There were jobs to be worked and ladders to be climbed; days you could barely wait to crawl into bed, exhausted, with prayers that the next day would be just a little easier.

There were Christmas surprises and Easter egg hunts, driving lessons and graduations, wedding proposals, retirement parties, and grandchildren’s preschool programs. There was devastating news and horrific loss. But you were never alone.

Of course, the shelves are full of pictures after being married for 52 years: memories of beach vacations and children’s birthday parties, family wedding portraits, and school projects.

There is a little metal box on the kitchen counter filled with handwritten recipes from relatives you remember with love, and there are tools in the garage that have been handed down through generations.

Birthdays and anniversaries seem to come faster every year. But every once in a while, after being married 52 years, a memory surfaces that makes you just stop and smile at the blessings you’ve been given: A train whistle blasts and its sound is so like the ones you listened to decades ago as you sat in the backyard with your 2-year-old counting the cars and waving at the man in the caboose. A granddaughter looks at your wedding album and asks you where you bought your beautiful wedding dress and the years are peeled away. You come across a picture of the day your husband came home on leave from the Navy and you ran to the plane in a cute sailor outfit you found, and he asked you to marry him.

After you’ve been married 52 years, you know how to make each other’s sandwiches, and he remembers your favorite flavor of ice cream. You buy only the brand of sliced pickles he prefers and keep the thermostat at the agreed-upon temperature. He puts out the recycling on Mondays and you take care of the trash on Tuesdays.

But one day, after you’ve been married for 52 years, as you’re getting ready to go to a doctor’s appointment and you put on your new dark-blue flared jeans and a striped sweater you haven’t worn in a while, he will look up for just a minute, and you will catch one of those wonderful looks that takes you right back to the days you were newly married and your whole world was in his eyes.

And in that moment, you’ll know the beauty of the promises you made and all the treasures the years will continue to bring. And you will thank God.

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Articles by Vicki Bahr

Vicki Bahr

I'm a mother of four, grandmother of nine, wife of John for fifty four years, an incurable optimist, word lover, and story sharer. I've worked and played at many careers, from proofreader to preschool teacher, businesswoman to human interest newspaper columnist to medical records clerk. Each path has afforded me the opportunity to appreciate the warmth of humanity and to hopefully spread a lifetime of smiles, empathy, and God's inspiration along the way. My life continues to be one of delight. With experience comes understanding, with understanding comes peace.