HAPPY BIRTHDAY ~

We met at a business lunch in Washington, DC.  We married the same year in Georgetown.  Our two children were born in the nation's capital.  And for two decades we worked there, living across the Potomac in northern Virginia ~ until a job opportunity too good to turn down took us to southwestern Michigan.  

He always preferred the sun and warmth, the palm trees and beaches of the South, but he put on his big-boy pants and put up with walking on the frozen iced shores of Lake Michigan [which I loved].

A favorite photo of mine ~ of him.

A favorite photo of his ~ of me.

Life changes, and another opportunity found us leaving those icy shores and moving then to the sunny beaches of Florida that he loved so much.  Raking leaves and shoveling snow was no more, exchanged for gathering fallen palm fronds and annually doing hurricane prep.  Kids who were teens, then off to college followed by building new lives for themselves, as we also built a new life for ourselves.  And over these years, I ~ always a "dog person" had been transformed to a cat lover by him.

Had he stuck around we'd be celebrating his birthday today, as we would have shared our 51st wedding anniversary last month at Thanksgiving.  But those who choose to be together, don't always get to choose when not to be together [yes, I'm not naive, knowing some make that choice for themselves].  For us, the choice was not ours and he left too soon.

I'm seeing a silverware drawer, typically messy, but two spoons nested together.  That was us.  Most of the time anyway.  Sometimes the opening or closing of the drawer causes a fork or a knife to come between those spoons, albeit temporarily, and with a little effort they find their way back together.  Nesting again.

Much more about us, nesting, here.