Sixty Years . . . Remarkable Couple Celebrates Anniversary!

There’s fireworks again tonight and Lizzie and Cayden are here cowering at my feet convinced that it is a storm.

Every night, periodically during most days and almost without exception, in the pre-dawn hours there is fireworks. I can’t keep up with identifying the celebrations and it seems like the Mexican people can’t either. When ever I ask about the fireworks someone is bound to say: Si fuegos artificiales! . . . Translation: Yes. Fireworks! That’s not an answer to my question of course but it’s nice to know that both parties are discussing the same subject.

I’ve just been explaining to Cayden and Lizzie that tonight’s fireworks must be to celebrate their “grandparent’s” sixtieth anniversary. That’s right. Today Howard and Jean Miller, my parents, have been married for sixty years.

Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that. ~Michael Leunig

Let’s not oversimplify Mr. Leuing. Love is a thin blanket on a cold night when the furnace has quit and the kids are sick. Love will not help you to discover a way to keep the car running or the cupboards filled between paydays. Love is often left in the dust when there are disagreements over: money, kids, in-laws . . .

But love for all that it is touted and celebrated with hearts and flowers, with songs and sighs and batting eyes, I believe it to be like a strong rope whose individual fibers are partnership, mutual respect, trust, tenacity, inspiration, creativity, imagination, humor and a host of attributes that are intricately bound and wrapped so that as it is woven its strength will be enough to bind together two people who have agreed to share their lives come what may.

A sixtieth anniversary is such an incredible and rare event that it honors the very notion of love. So Mom and Dad: the fireworks are still booming here and Cath and I are cheering, toasting your achievement and apart from all of that we are trying to peel the dogs off of us for despite the fact that we have decided that on this day the Mexican fireworks should be in your honor, Cayden and Lizzie still hate the sound of thunder!
I love you.