MARRIAGE AND A LIFETIME OF MEMORIES

Our 1st dance on
our wedding day
1973

My wife, LaRee, and I were lying in bed talking. We started to reminisce about our life together spanning nearly 50 years. There are so many beautiful, intimate memories—happy tender moments only we know. There were sorrows when all we had was each other, ecstatic joys we shared when our children and grandchildren were born. The reminiscing continued into the night; there is a long, deep river of shared mutual and exclusive memories. We held each other in that deep soul-bond only time can build.

At one point, LaRee wondered why couples separate and divorce after decades together? There was no judgment, only curious sadness. (We're both are sadly aware of tragic marital situations involving abuse, addictions and infidelity. She's very understanding in those circumstances. Our early years of marriage did involve alcoholism.)

After long-term marriages end, where do their histories go? Who do they share their exclusive and most intimate memories with that were accumulated over many years? If their love for each other has cooled or died ... isn't it worth trying to revive?

Somebody might say that I don't understand their circumstances. They are right. All I have to go on is my own experience of a love affair with LaRee that began when we were teenagers. If she was to leave

me now, she would take away the very heart of me (to borrow a line of Peter Cetera's song "If You Leave Me Now").

When you meet someone what has been left (either by divorce or death) be tender and kind. Their heart has been broken at some point and their dreams of a previous time were dashed and died. They need your love and understanding.