Today Was Our Anniversary

Today was our anniversary. We didn’t have time for a large, gala celebration, but I was delighted when a dozen red roses were delivered between a telephone call to Sister Ditty (to make refreshments for an open house at church) and the timer ringing to tell me a load of wash was ready for the dryer.

To celebrate, we had saved an hour after Chad’s meeting with the district Scout leader and before we both had to be at MIA. For an enchanting, peaceful hour we shared a delicious dinner at an inn overlooking a nearby lake and talked of the years we’ve shared together and what we were going to do with the Blazers to get their Tenderfoot requirements passed.

Then we rushed off—Chad to church and I to pick up the Nelsons, twelve miles away. I apologized to Steve Nelson for being late, explaining that it was our anniversary and we had sneaked an hour for dinner. “If it were my anniversary,” he exclaimed, “I’d have dropped everything! You wouldn’t even see me at MIA tonight!”

That made me think about our day. I had spent the morning arranging for Primary workers to help make 240 lunches for an M Man and Gleaner outing; arranging for refreshments for the branch’s open house on Sunday; gathering my Scout material together for the stake Primary president and the Scout leader, who were coming to MIA to help us with our programs, and doing the wash.

When I took Sonya, our babysitter, home after an inspiring MIA program, I was invited into her living room, where her mother, Sister Woodbury, hugged me and gave me a loaf of homemade whole wheat bread with a whispered, “Happy anniversary.”

At home, I have just kissed goodnight the most precious eighteen-month-old boy in the world, and in a few minutes I will end my day by kneeling with my husband in prayer.

Drop everything for the anniversary? I’d rather not. For this is the type of day we have built our whole marriage around. Busy? Yes, indeed! Happy? Ecstatic!

We are indeed living eternity now, and if heaven is but a continuation of these busy, happy moments, we will have had the most welcome anniversary present we could ever hope for.