A Quarter of a Century

Twenty-something years ago, my parents met through the forethought of a friend. "He looks like someone you used to date", this thoughtful person said. So it wasn't a blind date but it sounds like it wasn't too far from that.  I'm not sure if they'd met before that first outing or not, but looking like a former date isn't a very solid foundation for a first date. 

Apparently, the attraction went beyond who he looked like, because they dated for three years before getting married. He proposed right around her 20th birthday and six months later, on June 7, 1986, they were married. Twenty-five years ago.

They were 20 and 22  when they got married, a year younger than Carson and I. It's funny to picture my parents as newlyweds now that I'm in this stage of life. I wish they had a wedding video because it would be so fun to see familiar mannerisms, in them in their 20s. They look so young in this picture, yet exactly as they do now (minus the 80s style all around and the mustache on Dad). 

Today, they boast twenty-five years of marriage, three children, one son-in-law, three dogs, several goats, a beautiful home, two relationships with Christ, and zero mustaches. 

Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths.  No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century. 

 ~Mark Twain