Marriage Can Endure…

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

MARRIAGE CAN ENDURE…

In 1999 a magazine approached me with a request: would I do a piece for them on a couple celebrating their 70^th anniversary? You can read about their life together on a previous post, on CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS:  SEVENTY YEARS OF LOVE . While doing the interview for the article I snapped the following picture:

Seventy years of marriage. Anyone marrying that long ago would expect to be married until death—that the marriage vows that state as long as you live, ‘til death you do part are serious business. Marriages would endure.

It is unlikely that my husband Monte and I will celebrate 70 years of marriage. However, our marriage has lasted longer than most—we celebrated 40 years on September 3 in this year of 2014, by having An Apple Cider Adventure . We look forward to our 50^th in two years.

My grandparents, Albert and Mable (May Isabelle) married in 1920, and separated by my grandmother’s death 35 years later. The gloves she wore in her wedding were laid over my daughters Bible when she was married in 2008. The gloves, to me, represent marital stability. They endured for 88 years and remain in good condition.

In the box with the gloves was a dried out wedding bouquet from my grandmother’s wedding. We incorporated some of the ribbon in Sandy’s bouquet—endurance to be passed down from one generation to a great-grand generation.

I thought I’d conclude this post with a few photos of our past anniversaries: obviously, I was not the photographer…the first picture was taken in 2003 by a newspaper photographer:

Wallis Sands Beach at the end of my beach-walk

This next photo was taken at Fredericktown Ferry’s Almost-Last run the day before the ferry closed. While there we met Jim and Marie Shabin Eadie, who had celebrated their 60th anniversary August 15, 2013. It was not yet our 47th anniversary, which was coming September 3.

Photo taken by Christine

This next photo was taken atop the Rockingham Hotel in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 2008, just after we celebrated our 42nd anniversary.

Yes, marriages can endure the challenges set before them. Those who take their marriage vows seriously will work to maintain their relationship through, will work to overcome the obstacles presented to them. They won’t simply give up when the going gets rough. They will endure.