Our Anniversary

It’s our 39th wedding anniversary today. We will go out for dinner to celebrate. Last year a friend at work wrote a fun poem about her anniversary in response to a comment when she told a colleague it was her anniversary…he said, that’s a lot of dinners! Here is her poem:

13,514
by Sharon Ginter Eichhorn

13,514.
If you factor in leap years,
that is the count.
That is the number–
a lifetime, really.

One simple measure
of the passage of time.
A “Dinner Table” mathematical formula—
totaling an equation
of my life’s story.

Those first dinners, oh my.
Crusty casseroles with burnt edges
and tasteless flavor.
Spices were still a new concept,
untested and seldom employed.

Sitting down to some of those creations
was a risky venture—
once a one-bite effort
followed by two plops into the waste basket
and dinner out.

But the years passed,
and the meals improved
and the times spent across the
span of plates and family
continued.

When the babies came,
during those first years,
sometimes the meal consisted of
popcorn, a soda, and a lot of sighing.
Time was at a minimum.

Then came the years of hot dogs,
macaroni and cheese, tuna salad,
carrot strips and ice cream.
And, my motherly effort of hiding Brussels sprouts
inside meatballs to improve their diet of veggies.

On to the dinners with busy teens
grabbing Hot Pockets as they raced out the door,
and 1 a.m. pizzas because they missed dinner
and were starving—totally ignoring, of course,
the healthier leftovers in the frig.

And then, the deeply painful adjustment
to a table returned to two,
and a effort at acceptance of this quieter version
of the dinner table experience,
a lonelier variation of the years just past.

Now, with two at the table the norm,
a larger crowd intimidates a bit.
Thank goodness my cooking skills have improved,
because the nerves have aged,
and balancing it all more difficult.

But, joy is present when the count
at our table grows.
The kids have returned to share a meal
and I break out the big guns,
all their favorites gracing the table.

Deeply satisfied if I can feed them well,
dinners have become a gift I can give,
a welcome home and a gesture of love.
And the pleasure feeds my soul
Until the next time we gather.

So now, it is just Jack and I
most often at our table.
A return to the beginning,
as the circle comes to a close …
as we remember the start of all this.

Today, as we celebrate, quietly,
the 37 years of dinners we have shared
across the family table,
And remember all the stages of a life well-lived,
the circle meets … and goes on.

13,514 … plus 1 …