I was listening to Nat King Cole’s “Too Young” this week, and the lyrics zinged me:

They try to tell us we’re too young
Too young to really be in love
They say that love’s a word
A word we’ve only heard
But can’t begin to know the meaning of…

Dale and I were young forty years ago. Most people would say too young to be married. In fact, that’s what everyone did say…one of the objections we chose to ignore. What a relief that we eventually beat the odds — that it turned out as well as it did after nearly divorcing early on.

The full impact of that choice came home-to-the-heart just yesterday.

Hannah, our daughter, has been putting together a music video that we’re going to use in the live events I have coming up in Utah next week. When she finished, she called her father and me in to see it. I cuddled up beside her on the couch while Dale came around behind us so he could see her laptop over my shoulder.

She hit start.

“L is for the way you look at me. O is for the only one I see…”

It was our favorite Nat King Cole song: the one we often dance to in the kitchen or the bedroom! And it underscored a clever slide show of forty-years-with-Dale-and-Mona ending in that famous flourish of a trumpet: “Love was made for me and you!”

Grinning ear to ear, I looked up at Dale.

He wasn’t grinning. He was crying. And I knew why.

Only a couple of nights ago, after Dale had gone to sleep, I brought my oldest journals to bed with me and started re-reading entries from 1977, looking for an excerpt or two I could use in my live presentation. I found dozens of possibilities of course, all too silly and precious, but the one I finally bookmarked was a record of the night we decided to get married. My detailed entry included a reminder that, in his proposal, Dale had promised to give me a “beautiful life”.

Which is why he was crying about Hannah’s video. The proof, as they say, was in the pudding (or in the photos). He had given me a beautiful life.

As I’ve been packing up my gear for these presentations out-of-state, I’ve worried that Dale won’t be with me. At dinner last night, I told him so, and he reminded me again of all the major stuff he has going on in his own work next week; work that he’d really like ME to be present for.

“How,” I wondered out loud, “will we be able to do such big things so far apart?”

“Because,” he answered, “we’ve done so much together.”

 

YOUR POWER TO SUCCEED IN MARRIAGE
An Evening With Author Ramona Zabriskie

An entertaining, interactive evening of fun, friendship, media, and music with Team Wife for Life

Thu, July 27, 2017
6:30 PM – 9:30 PM MDT

Viridian Event Center
8030 South 1825 West
West Jordan, UT 84088

Tickets are free but must be reserved HERE: http://bit.ly/eventbrite-ramonazabriskie

Presented by
Salt Lake County Library System

-AND-

An Evening Fireside Chat for Couples with Marriage Educator and Author, Ramona Zabriskie
Friday, July 28, 2017
7:30 PM – 9:00 PM MDT

2215 E. Roosevelt
SLC, UT

Free and open to the public. No tickets required.

Presented by the national non-profit group: Marriage Enrichment