Strolling down Anniversary Memory Lane

“Sometimes someone comes into your life, so unexpectedly, takes your heart by surprise, and changes your life forever.” -Anonymous

My husband and I celebrated an anniversary yesterday. We have been together now almost our whole lives. When we met at a high school football game years and years ago, I was fourteen and he was eighteen. I was a freshman. He was a senior. At different schools. I wasn’t expecting to meet him or anyone that night. I was with a girlfriend who was meeting a guy after the game. I planned to walk to my sister’s house after the game.

Fate intervened. The guy brought my girlfriend’s cousin with him when he came to pick her up. Since I was still with her at the time and the new guy was part of my friend’s family, I caught a ride to my sister’s house. I was very young. Too young really, but sometimes things seem to be meant to be. We had an instant attraction for one another.  Three years later we were married. Too young really again, but we had love and shared a belief in the Lord. From the very first week, we went to church together.

We struggled through some lean years financially, but we had each other and before we got to our third anniversary, we had two babies. What a treasure those little ones were. We waited a few years before we added that final sweet bundle of joy.

That’s the story of our beginning. This week we took a journey back memory lane to Cumberland Falls where we went on a very short honeymoon. It was cold. Rain turned to ice on the night we married. But we went on to the Falls anyway. I had my little camera with me. I took a picture of Darrell and he took a picture of me. I obviously did a lot better job of holding the camera steady – important in those days.

We ate at the lodge that day on our honeymoon and when we sat down and looked at the menu, we were in trouble. We didn’t have enough money for most of the menu items. While it seemed everyone around us was dressed to the nines and eating fancy dinner entres, we were two kids needing to look for the cheaper fare. We ordered hamburgers, the cheapest things on the menu. I’m sure the waitress knew she was in trouble when it came time for her to get her tip. I don’t remember that part. I just remember feeling as though we didn’t fit in that fancy restaurant.

We ate at the lodge restaurant again today. It was early afternoon, so a lunch menu. I guess that was right up our alley. Darrell was already planning to order a hamburger just like he had all those years ago. We had eaten a late breakfast and weren’t really hungry but we wanted to relive that night so long ago. We didn’t have any trouble fitting in today since only two other guys in casual attire were in the restaurant eating. Darrell got his hamburger. I didn’t play along and got chicken which would fare better in a take home box. We reminisced and naturally didn’t agree on some of the memories. We had already walked to the lake where we were going to try to recreate the photos.

Of course, I remembered the pictures one way. Darrell remembered them another. Turned out he was closer to right than I was. I checked the old pictures when we got home. But so much had changed. Lots more walkways and barriers to keep a person from getting too close to the edge.  Looks as though in the picture I took way back when, there is only a cable to keep a person back. The picture of me is so fuzzy it’s hard to see but looks as though I’m sitting on a rock watching the falls thunder past below.

I got better pictures today, but they don’t recreate those old pictures. Not sure that would have been possible even if we had remembered them exactly. But we did create some new memories.

Have you ever walked down memory road with a spouse, family  member, or friend and found that you don’t remember things anything alike or at least not exactly the same? 

I guess I’m going to have to tell Darrell that he was remembering right and I wasn’t. And I was so sure! Sigh. LOL.

Hidden Springs Mystery Giveaway Still Open for Entries (Deadline to enter is midnight EST November 26, 2024)

To enter, just leave a comment here on this post. If you’ve already commented on the other posts since the giveaway started, that’s great and this new comment will give you another entry to increase your chances of being the winner of a set of the Hidden Springs mysteries, Murder at the Courthouse, Murder Comes by Mail, Murder Is No Accident. If you’ve already read the books, they might make a great Christmas present for a reader in your family or you can trade the win of those three books for a choice of one of my other books.