As summer winds down, I’m thinking of the summer of 1973. It was a special time. On Mother’s Day, I proposed to Jan, and we set the date of our marriage three months later. That summer was carefree and filled with expectations of a new life and a new future together. 

After the proposal, we drove to the end of a dirt road and hiked to the top of a ridge above Eagle Creek on Sonora Pass in California. Our MGB sportscar became a “4X4” taking us to the end of the bumpy dirt road to begin our hike that day. The photo captures the spirit of the summer of ‘73 when life was adorned with cut-off jeans, headbands, and few worries or cares. The bouquet was simple and hand-picked from a meadow on a mountainside.

A lot has changed in the last 50 years, yet some things have not changed. Jan can still fit in her wedding dress. For me, my previous six-pack gut is now a three-pack. In our journey of marriage, we have discovered a deeper love for each other and for God amidst all the changes that 50 years together have brought. 

We had no idea what it meant to be married when we held that wildflower bouquet a month before we said our vows and later when we knelt together before the pastor who officiated our wedding ceremony. There has been some pain and sorrow on our journey, but the joyful times have far outweighed the negative ones. The summer of ‘73 began with us standing atop a mountaintop together and by the end of August, we knelt before God in a wedding ceremony committing our lives to a union of oneness.

That summer had its moments of humor. At the fabric shop where Jan purchased the materials to sew her wedding dress, they were having a drawing for an all-expense paid honeymoon to Disneyland. We won! The next morning after our first night together when we finished breakfast, Jan got up to use the restroom. As soon as she left an older woman who was sitting at a nearby table came over to speak with me. She whispered a comment like a mother who was speaking proudly to her son, “It’s so wonderful to see a big brother take his little sister to breakfast.” I smiled and offered no correction.

Our life clock is approaching the final days of our earthly journey together. All that has mattered in the intervening half-century and all that has made our lives so wonderful continues to increase in ways we never would have imagined when we first began our journey. As the Righteous Brothers song Unchained Melody lyrics say “time goes by so slowly”, yet in retrospect, it passes too quickly.