A sad day awaits me in the morning, as the day will unfold without my bride alongside me to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

This will be one of those “firsts” I mentioned in an earlier blog post. It will mark the first wedding anniversary since I lost Kathy Anne to the savage form of brain cancer called glioblastoma.

I am not going to belabor the reason for my sadness. Instead, I am going to convey a message I received at church this morning from a gentleman who lost his wife to Alzheimer’s disease about four years ago. He and I have become friends, to be sure.

He told me not to “wallow” in my sadness. Instead, he offered a suggestion that I remember all the fun we had during our 50-plus years as husband and wife.

And, yes, we had a hell of a great ride. We saw almost the entire United States of America, several countries in Europe and Asia. We ventured to the Holy Land together. We laughed out loud for so much of it. Yes, we endured some pain together through the loss of family members, but the pain subsided and we returned quickly to those things that gave us joy.

We watched our sons become great men and cheered the successes they enjoyed as they have made their own marks on this world.

I will remember fondly all of that … and something the preacher told me prior to us taking our marriage vows. The ceremony, he said, would last just 22 minutes. “It will be over before you know it,” he said.

He was right. It was the quickest 22 minutes of my life. I’m glad it ended so rapidly, because the next 51 years were a riot!