Milestones

My son is 36 today. God bless him. He is a joy and wonder to me. A man from my loins. And a good and remarkable man. I love him so.

My daughter turned 33 last month. "As old as Jesus," I told her. She was not impressed. And she is a joy and wonder to me. A lovely and gifted woman. I love her so.

When I was 33, in 1980, I had just become the Rector of St. Paul's in New Haven. We lived in an astonishing rectory, Bern and Josh and Mimi and I.

Trudy M. told me, when she met me, "my priest and my gynaecologist are both younger than me".

Trudy was only 35--a couple of years older than Mimi is now and a year younger than Josh is now.

Bern and I had been married 10 years in 1980. Hard time were coming and we didn't know they were and somehow, beyond all comprehension, we survived them.

On Josh's 36th birthday, we've been married nigh on 41 years. September 5--Labor Day this year--will be our 41st anniversary. 41 years is a long, long time. No kidding. And, as I often estimate, we've been 'truly married' at least 35 of those years. The good news is, the last 20 or so are part of that total.

Milestones are remarkable.

Who knew we'd be married this long--given that I was the first 'sager' to marry into her extended Italian/Hungarian, so Roman Catholic family and I was the second member of my so, so Anglo-Saxon Protestant family to marry a Roman Catholic. The first was my cousin, Marlin, whose marriage to his Italian/RC bride barely survived the reception! So no one gave this union a chance in hell of succeeding.

Nearly 41 years later, we have 'given the lie' to what everyone thought would happen.

It is raining and raining. I love rain. But our dog 'hates' rain. He needs, I know and he knows, to go out and have a bowel movement. But he's hiding from me because he can still hear the rain though inside the house. I'll try to drag him out in a bit. It would be best if he had a #2, best for him and for me.

Sometimes a milestone is a poop in the rain.

Ponder that and tell me life isn't strange....