50 Years

Ephesians 5:25 – Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

June 19, 1976. Two very young people, really a boy and a young lady, made a marriage commitment in front of God, their family and friends. The stated goal was to be together until “death do us part.” Those two “kids” had no way of knowing the adventure they were embarking on and how long it might last. On June 19th, 2026 we celebrated our 50th anniversary.

I’m not going to go into details about when we first met, in fact I have already shared those in an earlier blog. I do want to tell you about our first real date though. We were “Greeks.” Terrie was a member of the Delta Zeta sorority and I was an SAE (Sigma Alpha Epsilon.) As such, most of our social life revolved around parties – mainly planned by my fraternity. One such annual party was what we called “The Cave Party” which involved turning our chapter house into a replica of a cave. We were also big on “pre-parties” which were smaller gatherings held at individual members apartments – primarily older guys who no longer lived in the fraternity house. I met Terrie just before the big event and thought it would be a good first date opportunity. Several of her sorority sisters would be there and it would be a good chance to find out if there was any mutual attraction between us. A good buddy of mine was hosting a pre-party at his apartment so of course the evening would start with that. I picked up Terrie at the sorority house and we had limited conversation on the way to the apartment. I was as nervous as she appeared to be. When we arrived at the pre-party there were maybe 20 or 25 people already there, the drinks had begun to flow and the music was going full tilt. In those days we actually dressed up for our parties so the girls were all in nice dresses and the guys were dressed in slacks and sports shirts. I guess you could say we were trying to act like grownups even though we were just a bunch of college kids. I tried to introduce Terrie to a few of my fraternity brothers but all she would do was smile and say hi. The next thing I knew she was cowering in a corner and not really interacting with anyone. All I could think was, “oh no. This isn’t good.” Either I had done something to offend her or she was simply an introvert, she already hated me and we would probably never have a second date. I wanted to ask her if she wished to go home but hey, the “Cave Party” was getting ready to start and I couldn’t miss that. Besides, there was something intriguing about this girl I hardly knew. Besides being extremely cute, she was classy and had an aura about her that said she was something special. She wasn’t aloof or rude, she was simply a little shy. Deciding I might as well tough it out and take her to the big party I retrieved her from the corner of the living room and escorted her to my car. Again, not a lot of conversation. When we arrived at the Cave Party things were cranking at the old fraternity house. The inside of the chapter room had been draped with brown paper, crinkled to resemble stone walls. The music was blaring and there was a trash can filled with a purple colored punch that could only be described as lethal. I’m surprised it didn’t melt the trash can – but I digress. Terrie was dressed in a very nice dress and looked beautiful. As I was introducing her to some of my friends one of them managed to spill a cup of that awful purple concoction right down the front of her dress. I was so mad but also incredibly embarrassed and figured, “well, that will be the end of that. She will never talk to me again.” We slipped out of the party so I could take her home to get something else to put on. We never returned to the party. I figured any chance I had with her went down the tubes with that spilled drink.

Despite the cataclysmic first date, I was intrigued by this cute, classy, quietly confident girl. Something was drawing me to ask her out again despite the fact that I assumed she hated me and would never answer my phone calls again. I decided to avoid any more fraternity or sorority events and to just go for a simple dinner date. Of course being a starving college student I didn’t have much money so it wasn’t going to be anything fancy. There was a Mexican restaurant named the Armadillo in a nearby town. It had good food and was cheap. Neither one of us was 21 yet so I didn’t have to worry about a bar bill. The only question was, did she like Mexican food? A week or so had gone by since the cave debacle so I decided to take a chance and call her. To my surprise she actually came to the phone (we had pay phones in the Greek houses) and said hello in that sweet voice I longed to hear. I asked her if she liked Mexican food and would consider going to the Armadillo with me. To my great surprise she said yes! Now I only had to hope she wouldn’t order anything too expensive because I only had like $20.00 to my name. I still remember getting the bill from the waitress – it was a whopping $6.66 for the two of us. Wow, what a relief. I had avoided a second embarrassment in front of this girl I was really beginning to like.

We began dating on a regular basis and the more I learned about her, the more I heard about her, the more time I spent with her, I knew I was falling in love with her. We had been dating a little over a year and approaching my graduation and her summer break from college classes when she told me she was going to spend the summer as a counselor at the Easter Seals Handicap near Georgetown, Colorado. I thought that sounded great until I learned she would be away for weeks at a time and I could not see her while she was working at the camp. I knew she was committed to the work at the camp, it fell right into her wheelhouse and complimented the degree she was working toward in special education. That still didn’t take the sting away from the idea of being apart from her for weeks at a time. I was one love sick puppy and didn’t have any idea how to deal with it. I wrote her letters, letters I’m sure she thought were the soapiest dribble she had ever read. Letters I now hope none of my buddies ever see. None-the-less I kept writing them, hoping she would read them. It was the longest summer of my life and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Finally she had a few days break and drove home to see me over a weekend. It was during that time together that I uttered the words, “we need to get married.” Well, that was it, the die was cast. Our future together was sealed. I hadn’t even considered the need to respectfully ask her father for her hand in marriage. Her sorority sisters knew about it before our parents did. It wasn’t until a few months later that I requested a meeting between our parents, who had never met, and informed them of our desire to get married. As I said, I was just a boy in so many respects but I knew she was the one God intended me to spend my life with.

I’m not going to try to summarize the past 50 years we have spent together. Like most couples we have had some ups and downs but the fact is it has been mostly up. I can remember one particular evening when we were getting ready to go out with some friends. I knew I was infatuated with her and loved her but that special evening as I stood watching her get ready it really hit me. I looked at her, cradled her face with my hands, planted a kiss on her lips and said, “I’m not sure I can ever explain how much I love you.” It was an epiphany of sorts, something that could only come from the realization that God had given me an incredible gift. A gift I didn’t deserve and could have never orchestrated on my own.

50 years. 50 years with an incredible woman. 50 years of learning and growing together. In his book, “Wild at Heart,” John Eldredge talks about the need to be “a knight in shining armor” for our wives. In the time I left, that is my goal. To be Terrie’s “knight in shining armor.” To be the husband God created me to be. To honor everything she has meant to me for 50 years.