ANNIVERSARY

For the first time in 63 years, our anniversary will fall on Easter Sunday. The traditional vows we exchanged when we were married and repeated when we celebrated our Golden Anniversary sum up our relationship as husband and wife: “to have and to hold from this day forward for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish until death us do part.”

Together we’ve matured from teenagers to octogenarians. We share seventy years of memories beginning in high school. There’s our song, “Battle of New Orleans.” It isn’t romantic, but we smile when we hear Johnny Horton describing that clash between the U.S. and the British during the War of 1812. The tune saturated the air waves in 1959 when we honeymooned in the ‘Big Easy’. It also reminds us of our own hostilities through the years.

We were blessed with three children. We’ve mourned Linda, our developmentally different , oldest daughter, who died of breast cancer at age forty-eight. Lisa and Kurt followed in their dad’s duty shoe footsteps and completed careers as cops.

Kurt married Sandy and we have two grandchildren. While Katelyn and Jacob were growing up, I learned why my mother said it was a privilege to babysit the kids. The two have joined the law-and-order family tradition–she is an assistant state’s attorney and he is a police officer. Katelyn has added her husband, Sean, to our family. We celebrate holidays and special occasions together. April 17th, we’ll all enjoy brunch at Merrill & Huston’s Steak Joint in Beloit.

Since Ken retired and I continue writing in my family-room office, we spend a lot of time at home. Occasionally, one of us leaves the house to pursue our own interests–he goes fishing or I go to a writers’ gathering. I still get butterflies in my stomach at the thought of seeing my husband again after a few days’ absence.

Who’s the love of your life?