Forty-nine years ago two kids were married. Of course they heard all those rumors that were whispered behind their backs.

“They’re too young.”

“It’ll never work.””

“I heard she’s…”

Yep, we heard those comments and many more. The funny thing about it was we didn’t know we were too young. We didn’t know it wouldn’t work. But there was one thing we did know. We knew she couldn’t be… .

A few months before we were to be married I was fixing up an old house on our farm when my father who was watching me work said, “I have to tell you something, son. I’m proud of you. If y’all work half as hard on being married as y’all have on fixing up this old house you two will be just fine.”

Well, we did work. Before reality hit we had no idea we were as broke as we were. We didn’t know if we’d ever own a truck with more than two forward gears, if we would ever have a roof over our heads that didn’t leak, or own a television with a screen larger than fifteen inches, but we were in love and we were willing to take on the world.

We always managed to have something on the table to eat, along with some flowers we picked from around the farm or from the side of the road. Those flowers may have only been weeds, but they were flowers, nonetheless. We made do.

No matter how little we had or how hard life became, we trusted Him. We tithed. We prayed. And we had faith.

Well, here we are forty-nine years later. He took care of us. Today we’re that old couple you see holding hands in the park. We’re the old man and woman seen sharing a meal at a restaurant, not because we can’t afford two, but because neither one of us has ever eaten very much. We’re that old couple you see going down the road where she is driving the car and he is trying to give her directions. We’re the old folks that sit down in the evening to watch television together and wake up in time to go to bed. We have arrived.

We are no longer those two kids that got married back in 1975. We have become more. Much more. When people whisper behind our backs now, it doesn’t bother us because we can’t hear them.

My father was right. We had to work hard. But it was worth it, and when you love the one you’re with, it hardly seems like work at all.

Happy Anniversary, Tina

Thank you for believing in me, and thanks for asking me out.

_______________
Rick Algood
January 25, 2024