[I read the following at the 50th wedding anniversary celebration for my parents, Sunday, December 18th, 2016.]

The story of how my parents met became mythological in its proportions to me after growing up hearing the story told many, many times during my childhood. It goes something like this:

They met at a statewide church camp when my dad was sixteen and my mom was – as she puts it – a mature 13 and three-quarters. They lived 100 miles apart, my dad in Fort Lupton, Colorado, a small town north of Denver, and my mom in Pueblo, a former steel town south of Denver. After meeting and becoming smitten with each other, they corresponded by mail for about a year. Wanting to see each other again, my dad drove to Pueblo with a friend of his and took my mom and a friend of hers to the Colorado State Fair. At that point, things took a turn for the worse. As the story goes, my dad told “the joke” – which so offended my mom and her friend that the rest of the time at the fair was spent with the pairs segregated not by couple, but by their sex. The drive home was tense with the two boys in the front seat and the two girls in the back seat. So tense, that at some point, my dad pulled over and threatened to make the girls walk home from there. His friend made him reconsider and the girls were taken safely home.

If you’re wondering what the joke was, it went something like this:

“What did Adam say to Eve? Eve, I wish you’d stop using my pants for the salad.”

From there, the story goes that they did not speak for three years. Three. Years. Now, during that time, my dad kept in contact with my mom’s older sister, writing letters occasionally to each other. At some point, my aunt suggested to both that they talk, and when they did, their romance was rekindled. A year or so after that, they married, at the ages of 19 and 21. As the story goes, they were so impatient to marry that instead of waiting until my dad graduated from college later that spring, they would marry during the Christmas break between the semesters of his last year. And so, they were married at my mom’s home church in Pueblo, on December 23rd. Their honeymoon consisted of a short road trip in the snow-laden mountains of Colorado, ending in time to get my dad back to classes for his last semester of college.

And they lived happily ever after.

If you’re finding that statement ridiculous, then A) you know that they’ve now been married 50 years and much has happened since, and B) you know that there’s no such thing. Marriage is compromise. Marriage is sacrifice. Marriage is work.

They would probably agree that at the time, they were both naive of these facts and that their marriage was just the beginning of discovering their personality differences, discovering their differences in upbringing, of discovering each other, and how these discoveries would impact the discovery of themselves.

When I first saw the musical “Into the Woods” by Stephen Sondheim, I loved the concept that it was a two act musical, mashing up several fairy tales, where the endings that we’re all familiar with, the “happily ever after” endings, came at the end of the first act. I remember spending all of intermission excitedly, and nervously, wondering what would come next – what would come after “happily ever after.”

There are many events that came next for my parents:

A decision to go into the ministry.

A move to the cold of Minneapolis, Minnesota for Bible college.

A move to the cold of Gunnison, Colorado to become the pastor of a small, mountain town church.

The birth of their first and only child.

A decision to become missionaries.

A move to Brussels, Belgium awaiting a decision for mission placement.

A move to Jerusalem, Israel – a life-changing experience. An experience so profound that their world view, their view of humanity, their view of home and everything they knew, shifted.

A need for a break.

A homecoming.

A decision to leave the ministry.

Building a life in Colorado with careers in engineering and high tech.

Building a life in California.

Retiring.

Living happily every after, again.

These broad strokes explain little of how they got from the wedding ceremony to happily ever after. I can tell you it wasn’t easily done. They will be embarrassed for me to share this memory where a fight of theirs got so loud and lasted so long, that my conflict avoiding, grade-school aged self decided that the only way to deal with the situation was to hide in the linen closet of the bathroom – putting two doors between me and their argument.

As an adult, I better understand, and deeply admire, their journey together.

Several years ago now, there was a television show my parents and I began to watch. It was a British show called “As Time Goes By”. It’s the story of a couple who, after being separated for 38 years, re-discover each other and fall in love all over again. While the story of how these characters meet again after so many years and rekindle their love is sweet, I resonate most with the interactions of the couple and how they treat each other. I see my parent’s relationship reflected in their story:

Their personalities are different, almost, seemingly, incompatible. But the result is that they complement each other, filling inadequacies of one with the strengths of the other. They recognize each other’s weaknesses and help the other compensate when they are feeling lost and inadequate. They celebrate the other’s strengths and encourage each other’s growth, even when that growth seems scary or isn’t fully understood. They sacrifice for each other, equally. They communicate, especially when it’s difficult to say. They laugh with, and occasionally at, themselves, finding humor in difficult moments. And when those difficult moments come, they face them and speak truth to them until they are no longer difficult. They challenge each other when the irrational moment springs from the trivial and support each other when it comes from the wounds of the past. They acknowledge when they’re wrong. They apologize. They listen.

Combining these traits with the wisdom of many years, there is a sweetness of interaction that is a delight to observe, and something that I not only admire but aspire to in my own relationship.

Happy 50th Anniversary, Mom and Dad.