Today is our 28th wedding anniversary!
“Dang, that’s a long time, wasn’t it just your 25th…three years ago?” My star barista’s math is spot on!
We are looking at the photograph of us on that lovely day, posing for my father’s camera after signing our license,
Later we hammed it up,
behind the laughter we were oblivious to what was to come.
My school teacher daughter asked me yesterday,
“If we knew what was going to happen to us in the future do you think we would live our lives differently?”
This is not an easy question to answer because if that knowledge was universal all of us would behave differently and in the end life would still take its twists and turns. But it is a good mulling topic for hot chocolate and toasted crumpets on a long, cold, winter’s evening…so let’s put it back in the mull box.
Instead we’ll return to the photograph taken more than a quarter of a century ago with the promise of ten thousand tomorrows dancing in our eyes.
Little did we know what lay ahead to test our vows,
The newborn’s cry at 3am
The wailing toddler in church
The snap of a bone breaking two days before Christmas
The unrecognizable face of a child who has fallen onto a concrete step
The fury of siblings fighting
The emptiness of a deserted bedroom
The wrench of a heart breaking
The grief of loss
The angst-filled teen years
Empty nest
and cement our promise,
The start of waking after an undisturbed night
Delighted giggles
The sound of first words
The brightness of a smile
Unsteady footsteps
The loss of a tooth
Unlimited hugs and kisses
Four fabulous beings
The sweetness of youth
to love within the ordinariness of life.
We scroll to a photograph of us, on the iPod, taken in front of one of our favourite landmarks, The Colosseum, where we honeymooned those twenty some odd years ago,
and notice the promise of another ten thousand tomorrows slow dancing in our eyes.
I made the decision to go grey a few weeks ago. Actually, I had been wanting to do it for a long time but couldn't find a stylist who seemed keen on working with me. I am 53, a school teacher and look probably 10 years younger, and i was being told 
I wrote this in 2003 and recently discovered it in a desk drawer!
HI, Sylvestercat,
Do an online search of the topic "housing exchange," or "house- or home- exchange," and lots of things will pop up.
There is a busy hot-topic conversation thread going on under "Other Topics" and "Shared Housing Alternatives" on
… and they lived happily ever after. Thank you for such a lovely piece and Happy Anniversary!