Wednesday, October 23, 2013

The Time I Have Spent With Kings

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     Sometimes love is all dressed up in its' Sunday best having an awesome time. And sometimes love is wriggling around together, barely breathing, in the deepest, soul-wrenching pain. Sometimes love is exciting and new, like they sang about on The Love Boat.  Other times it is sitting side by side reading or the rhythm of the dryer balls clunking. Love can be massages and tickles and it can be pulling things out with tweezers or holding the dog while someone else gets the goop out of his eye. Love brings you flowers. Love brings you dirty laundry. Love celebrates in big over the top ways. Love says it's okay to celebrate by just being still. 

   
Bill & Jean King 70th Anniversary

     Last weekend we celebrated 70 years of love between my grandparents. They were married in 1943, when they were 17 years old. I do not have to explain to you that they have seen it all together.  They have opened their home and their hearts to anyone who crossed their path. They have welcomed many, many people to their table. They have always worked hard, and still do. They still keep a garden. They still can and freeze food. These 87 year old sprites just hosted a house full of people last week.  He's been splitting wood and stacking it for winter. She's been cleaning and cooking and baking. They make the rest of us, especially me, look lazy in comparison. 

     I am so lucky because I got to be their first and favorite grandchild. I got to hear him whistle and play the harmonica. I got to eat endless amounts of her cooking. I  sat behind her on the top of the couch and combed her hair. I went on tractor rides with him. He used to bring a snack pack pudding cup, when they were still in cans, home in his lunch box for me. She would make me potato pancakes. Their love has always been safe, a refuge from any storm out in the rest of the world. The example they have set for all of us who are lucky enough to be theirs is beyond compare. I am so grateful to get to witness this legacy of love. 

     I hope that you have some people just as wonderful in your life. I hope I grow up to be as wonderful an example to someone else.