Beginning In The Spring of 1942

and I'm thinking it was either the last week of March or the first week of April that my parents met. I'm back tracking on the calendar to arrive at that time as they were married on June 17, 1942, twelve weeks after they met. I guess you would say what a whirlwind courtship and I guess you would be right. And I guess you would smile when I say it lasted 58 years, 5 months and 3 days. I was there for the end, obviously not for the beginning.

I always remember though hearing that on their first date it rained. Heavy rains. I don't know where they went, I think maybe a movie...they both were 20 years old. The mode of transporation was most likely walking so how important on a rainy, spring evening to have an umbrella. And this dog head was the handle to that umbrella. It always sat, for as long as I can remember, in the china closet in the dining room in this bowl on this plate. Every once in a while it would come out and I can hear my mother say how it had rained on their first date and this was the handle to the umbrella that they had used. As I got older it struct me how this handle had been saved and what it represented to them and for them.

It was quite a love story, her and him. I have never seen a man love anyone as my father loved my mother. She was his every breath up to his last.

The year after my father passed my mother went into a nursing home. Upon cleaning out her house I handn't given thought to this in quite a while and then I came upon the china boat and handle. With great care I brought it home with me. It now sits, as it has for the past 10 years, in my dining room on my hutch still holding what was in it. Some wheat pennies, a book of matches, the newspaper announcements of the birth of my children and the priceless dog head handle. Six years ago she joined him where the rains have now ceased.

This is another little thing that will be passed on to my children. Something so simple, so profound; a dog head handle that represents a

love for all eternity.



Come this Thursday,

June 17, 2010,

Happy Anniversary,

God bless you both

... 68 years and forever.

with all my love