My parents celebrated their 50 years together. What a staggering thing that is, especially when I think about all the memories that make up those 50 years. What kind of incredible connection must there be between my parents?   I’m not sure what has made their marriage endure when so many others have failed, but I do know that they are each other’s best friend. How they became best friends is a good story. My dad passed the Foreign Service exam on the first try (a jaw dropping accomplishment as ¾ of the people that take the exam fail.) He joined USIA (United States Information Agency) and began a 20+ year career travelling the world as a diplomat.  My mother fully supported my dad’s desire to be a diplomat. Seeing foreign lands was exciting especially for two kids from a small town in Wisconsin! But she was a young woman of 27 with a young child (me!) and our little family was whisked off to Rio de Janeiro to take Portuguese lessons. The young couple was dropped into a foreign country with virtually no language skills. To me this is where they began to forge that deep friendship that is the essential component of a great marriage. They had that whole “the two of them against the world” mentality and it has been a part of their relationship ever sense the beginning. My dad is now retired and with mom’s help, they have been writing a memoir of their life together. Mostly the memoir focuses on our travels overseas as a family, but it starts with the beginning of their life together on their wedding on August 22, 1964.

Dad remembers the wedding fondly, although any wedding in August seems cruel and unusual punishment to me. “Your mom was a beautiful bride.” He says with a smile when we look at the wedding book. Dad’s brother, Mark, and friend Johnny were altar boys and his Uncle Monty was his Best Man. The young couple went on their honeymoon for three “glorious” days in Minneapolis. The thing is folks, even after 50 years my Dad is still trying to justify Minneapolis as a great honeymoon destination. Mom, justifiably, turns a deaf ear to his explanations.  Dad went to New Orleans without her the summer prior to his first year as a teacher (and to their marriage) and she has never quite forgotten that infraction. My dad makes things worse by bringing up the great show they saw in Minneapolis by Nat King Cole’s brother Ike. I’m not making any of this up.

Mom remembers staying at her grandmother house the night before the wedding. She could not get the song “I’m getting married in the morning” from My Fair Lady out of her head as she did her nails for her special day. To say that people were surprised that my mom and dad were dating much less engaged to be married is an understatement. My mom was best friends with Dad’s sister Liz and neither of them liked dad very much. He was the older brother of seven children and he took his role as the eldest way too seriously.   But as they both grew up, and both turned out to be incredibly good looking people, they naturally gravitated towards one another. I’m sure it was more complicated than that but I am their child so allow me some brevity in this more romantic aspect of their initial connection.

Early the morning of my mother’s wedding; she went to the her local Beauty shop to get her hair done and have the pill box hat with veil placed on her head. It was very Jackie Kennedy! Picture a young pretty girl on a bike, with a pill box hat and jeans and that was my mother the morning of her wedding. When I visualize this moment, and I have for years, I hear her singing “I’m getting married in the morning” as she bikes home, veil trailing in her wake. That image has made me smile since I was a child.

As a romance writer I am highly influenced by the love my parents have for each other. I’m a believer in happy endings and strong long lasting love. So if you read my books expect humor and expect love but don’t expect a sad ending, because that just isn’t my thing.