60 Years of Life and Love

Vern and Wilma Carson's 60th anniversary party, July 4th, 2009

July 9, 1949, my mom and dad got into my dad's car and started a drive to Lake Tahoe for a romantic honeymoon. Along the way they stopped at a little Baptist church in Lodi, California, where they found the pastor in his study preparing his sermon for the next day. They asked if he would marry them and he agreed as long as they would bring along a couple of witnesses. They hurried back to collect my Aunt Doris and her husband Fran and then got married at 4:00 p.m. The two couples went out to dinner, after which they parted company so that Mom and Dad could get on to that honeymoon. Somewhere there is an old scrapbook that has photos from that week of happiness. It's black background pages are illustrated with white ink Dad used to depict the beautiful moonlight they saw dancing on the lake each night.

I think they might have had the right idea; keep the ceremony brief and save your energy for the honeymoon.

Now they have been married for 60 years. Some people might have doubted whether a marriage that started so impulsively, between a 16 year old and a 20 year old, could last, but they have beaten the odds. They have not only stayed together for six decades, they have loved each other vigorously through all of them. Even now they celebrate their love every day. It is the centerpiece of their home and life together, the source of the peace and harmony they live in and the wellspring of much of the laughter they share. Visitors can't be around them very long without seeing that these two people love each other very much.

My parents have shown me how to get through life. They have known extreme grief as well as extreme joy. They have been forced to press on through countless challenging circumstances and they have stayed together, working as a team even when they weren't sure what to do next. Their pattern has been to move closer to each other whenever circumstances threatened to blast them apart.

They have been loved, admired, taken for granted and, yes, aggravated by their big family over the years. Their response to conflict has been to re-establish loving relationships as quickly as they could. They believe family is meant to be together and they can't rest when there is any kind of separation. They love having their family together. They think and talk about each family member so much that all of us are actually present with them every day. They fret over the ones they don't see or hear from often enough. They worry and pray. They also brag and speak with amazement about how remarkable they think each of us is.

There is not enough room here for me to talk about how much I have learned from my parents and how richly they have blessed my life. They are present in every part of me. I don't like to think that there will ever be a time when I have to travel through life without them. When they leave for Heaven I know that some of the wind that has filled my sails is going to die away.

I am grateful for every day that I have with them. Visiting them is always a joyful homecoming for me, a return the rich environment that gave me my start in life. We laugh together, we tell stories and catch up on the news; sometimes we cry and pray together. We look at old and new pictures and revisit old and new memories. I can never get enough of it.

I wish my mom and dad a happy anniversary this July 9. I hope they have many more, but I am glad to have shared this one with them and seen the joy and contentment of their faces as they gazed upon the family gathered around them. I saw that they were indeed blessed--by those to whom they have been a tremendous blessing.