Celebrating 50 Years: My Parents’ Love Story

This Sunday, we celebrated my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary at Turf Valley Resort. Today, on June 12, they’re officially celebrating 50 years together!!!

As a surprise for my mom, my dad wrote a guest blog. I took the liberty of editing it and adding images, subheadings, and a title. Still, the story is all theirs, and it’s one for the ages.

Meeting in Middle School

My first memory of my wife, Denise, dates back to when we were 13. I had actually met her two years earlier, when my mother began taking me to her church. But with her braces, glasses, and slightly pudgy build, she had escaped my notice.

Two years later, we attended a church youth retreat with other kids from our church. Not much had changed with her physical appearance. Still, the time we spent there together allowed me to notice a few things about her that I hadn’t noticed before.

First, I noticed that she was quite talkative. Second, I noticed that she had what I considered to be a funny voice. I can’t quite describe what was funny about it, but I found it funny, nevertheless. The third thing I noticed about her was the most subtle and, by far, the most important: her personality. It was this personality that first drew me to her so many years ago.

I can still picture in my mind the two of us walking up a long, gentle hill on those campgrounds, talking. I don’t remember what we were talking about. In fact, I can’t remember a single word that was said as we walked together. I simply remember feeling so comfortable in her presence.

It would prove to be a gift of hers. That gift would enable her to make and keep many friends over the course of her lifetime. It would also enable her to become a confidante and a counselor to many. Much later, it would help her establish and keep important business relationships. Those relationships would cause the company she founded to prosper.

Dating in Their Teens

Well, that day on the youth retreat led to a painfully-awkward “romance.” For the next month or two, we sat together in church holding hands. Mercifully, it soon ended. But three years later, it would begin again.

Now sixteen, Denise had blossomed into a beautiful young lady. She was tanned, taller, and thinner. The braces—and even those thick glasses she had worn—were gone and replaced with contacts. Suddenly, the whole world was beginning to realize Denise’s value.

Back then, I knew she was fun, nice, pretty, and of good moral character. But I really had no clue about what an amazing wife, devoted mother, loving grandmother, or successful businesswoman she would become. Of course, that doesn’t prevent me from claiming credit for being an amazing wife picker.

The Warren Buffet of Wife Pickers

Warren Buffet made himself and his co-investors a fortune by looking at young companies, finding the ones where he saw value others didn’t see, and investing in those companies. I have often called myself the Warren Buffet of Wife Picking.

When I want to get a laugh and tease my now-beautiful wife, I tell people how she looked when we first met. Then I say, “I invested in Denise when her stocks were low.” To save myself from being in too much trouble, I add, “And I have been reaping the benefits ever since.”

The fact is that I was far more fortunate or blessed to end up as Denise’s husband than I was wise or insightful. Still, I have reaped the benefits, nonetheless.

The Proverbs 31 Woman

At our recent 50th wedding anniversary celebration, I read part of the 31st chapter of Proverbs, the one about the virtuous woman. The description starts with the words, “A virtuous woman, who can find?”

It’s a question, of course, but it’s also a statement about the rarity of a truly virtuous woman. The author then goes on to describe her. By the time he finishes listing all the things she does for her husband, children, and others—and all the character traits she possesses—one feels like he has set the standard so high that no woman can fulfill it.

When my children and I read this chapter, it feels as though we are reading about the woman we have known all our lives. So, my answer to that timeless question—“A virtuous woman, who can find?”—is this: I found one in you.

A Lifetime of Love

Fifty-seven years have passed since that day I walked up that hill at the campground with Denise by my side. Since that day, we have walked up many a hill together both literally and figuratively.

God willing, a few more years down the road, I will find myself walking up yet one more hill with that same talkative girl by my side, the girl with the funny—no, now so familiar—voice, feeling even more comfortable in her presence than I did on that day, having spent a lifetime building a life, a family, and a bond of love and trust together.

Happy anniversary, Denise! Love, Michael