Today was my husband's 72nd birthday. Wow, and to think we started dating when he was 24 and I was 20. How time flies when you're having fun. I look into the mirror and realize I am getting older but at the same time I also feel like I did when I was younger. Perhaps not as energetic but the feelings are still the same. I look at this man that has been my husband for over 46 years, soon to be 47 and I can't imagine my life without him. He is indeed the wind beneath my wings. He sees me as I am and still loves me for all of my imperfections. I realized today, I feel the same way about him. I see a string on his shirt or his hair has blown away from what he likes and I have to fix it for him. I want everyone to know this man that has been such a pillar in my life.
We dated for over a year before we went off to school and then the spring of that year of school he proposed to me so we became engaged. We continued dating long distant for the next year until he graduated from BYU. We had known each other since we were in elementary school. Although, my memories of this older "boy" really aren't very clear. About all I remember was that he teased me. When I really got to know him was when he got home from his mission and we lived very close at that time and I was in the youth group and he was going to show pictures and tell about his mission. All of us girls went to all of these, they were fun and besides, guess we were auditioning our husbands to be - to find the right one. My first real knowledge of when we were "older" and met again was at a dance at the church. He had just returned from his mission. He asked me to dance and I loved it. He is a VERY good dancer and we had such fun. It just got better from there. I had graduated from high school the spring a year before and was looking to go onto college. I was thinking of going up to Logan USU but Glen talked me into going down to BYU. AS I said, in the spring of that school year Glen proposed to me and then he would continue school and I would work, according to my Mother I had to work and get my china, silver and crystal so I was ready for marriage. I stayed home that year and worked very hard and yes I got all the things I was expected to get. Glen, made trips home almost every weekend or at least as much as he could. We planned on getting married right after he graduated, which would happen in the spring of that very long year. He graduated one week and the next weekend, Friday, June 7, 1963 we got married in the Salt Lake City LDS Temple. It's seems like yesterday, I can tell you what time I got up to get ready to drive down to the temple, 4:00 A.M. because there was not a freeway back then. Glen came by to pick me up, because my parents hadn't been married in the temple and neither of them had taken out their endowments so my wedding was a little lonely for me, Glen, his parents, two of his brothers, the Bishop and his wife from my home ward were all that was there. I remember I cried all the way through the ceremony. I was so happy and yet a bit sad but I knew that this was the "right" way to be married so I struck out on my own. There was no one from my immediate family, parents, grandparents or ever cousins had gone through the temple, so this was sad but I was so happy with this man that had chosen me, I cried tears of joy. It felt so right to be there in the temple with him promising to be his wife for time and all eternity. I know my Heavenly Father was there with me all of the way because I felt warm and safe in the knowledge I was doing the right thing.
I realize as I look back, how little knowledge I had about the gospel and our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ. But the Lord had blessed me with a testimony that I knew this was where I needed to be. His spirit had blessed me so many times as I grew up, many times when I really didn't know that was what it was. My knowledge has grown 100 times and I have been given many opportunities to grow and become what my Heaven Father knew I could do and become.
He blessed both Glen and I with so much, we have been given (as I have mentioned so many times here) five beautiful daughters and since then four wonderful sons and 10 grandchildren. What more could a person ask for? We have been blessed to be close to these grandchildren as much as we possibly could. We have traveled much and enjoyed and learned so much. We've had the privileged of watching our children as they become wonderful parents. Learning from their children as we had learned from ours.
Thank you Father, for this wonderful man, whose 72nd birthday is today, I wish his parents were still here and I would tell them thank you for raising such a wonderful man. I love him so much and will forever. The only dream I've had for our children was that they could marry and find someone that loved them as much as their father loved me and they would love that person as much as I had loved their father. I know when you both feel this way, you can handle any of life's problems and of course there are always problems. We all have different ones but when you have built your marriage on that kind of love - the rest will work itself out.
The result is one day you stop and realize while you were living your life it flew by you and here you are having been married over 46 years. That sounds like a long time, I am so surprised the first time I realized it had been that long. Where did the time go?
