This is a love story

 I met a boy, fell every which way for how his eyes danced.

He asked me things no one else had ever asked me. I answered everything. And learned his tender heart.

After three years of long-distance, we set up house in the same city.

My family loved him right away. Only half joking, my father warned, "Rosemarie will spend and spend till she spends her last dime, but it's your problem now." My new husband laughed, hearing him. My mother said, "Never measure your love. Sometimes it will be sixty-forty one way, sometimes it will be seventy-thirty the other way. It works itself out." He nodded, hearing her.

After a single revelatory session in year one with my then therapist, whom the man dubbed Saint Eleta, married life was mostly easy. Saint Eleta showed us the childhood genesis of our conflict styles, and once we understood the why of my tendency to lob dynamite at his cave, I could choose to not light the explosives and he could choose to come out of hiding.

We had kids, the perfect pair. He was the absolute best Papa Bear.

The kids grew up, blessed with cousins as siblings, family at the center always.

Adolescence, then college, came and went. Despite bumps and missteps, and with a huge helping of grace, we all made it through. Our children became lovely, capable, opinionated adults.

They found and married their true loves, with whom we also fell in love.

Our New York family expanded, our circle of heart children grew.

And while all that was happening, forty years went by. And now here we are, celebrating four decades of marriage today, and looking ahead with wonder, realizing the golden one is well within view. Happy ruby anniversary, my love. I'd do it all again with you.