This in response to the featuring of Romance articles this month. The author is more confused at age 56 than he was at 26.

I have always believed in the saying that God protects children and fools because I have been both. It is tough going through life alone with a double whammy like that. It has taken me years to realize that I will never figure out all of life's tricky questions, particularly in matters of the heart. God brought an amazing woman into my life 30 years ago and while I have always thought of that as a blessing, I have never stopped to consider after three decades how that momentous encounter has changed or if it has changed at all. The question demands some consideration, especially for someone who is no longer a child, but still a fool in need of plenty of protection.
I wish I had something profoundly philosophical to add to the contemplation of love, but I think I played too much in college instead of studying philosophy and my mind is worn anyway. I think I would best look back over time and be grateful I learned to go deaf and change the sheets. It has proved successful to ignore the things which lead to trivial arguments and not take dirt to bed which can lead to major ones.
Coming to that conclusion has not been a gentle experience. I know that God brought me to my wife, Joy, because I could never have found such a treasure on my own. At the age of 25, life was too superficial for me to see the significance of how things would change because of a chance meeting with a very determined and energetic young woman in the kitchen of a boys' group home.
Of course, one can't have the wisdom of middle age without the pains of youth. Whomever thought up the phrase "If I only knew then what I know now," needs to think some more. Only Merlin could look backward and it didn't do that much good anyway. I enjoyed the idealism and hearts and flowers of dating Joy. Every day was Valentine's Day and that is the way it should be throughout a relationship. If we could see what was ahead while we were dating, we would likely lose our idealism and either run away or become like half the members of Congress.
With all due respect to one of my favorite movie characters, Forrest Gump,however, life is not a box of chocolates. There is chocolate in the box, for sure, but a good deal of nasty stuff as well. When I first bit into that, expecting a bon bon, it was an eye opener. Many preconceptions changed and in response I just tried to shut the box. That was a nonsensical thing to do. The nasty is what makes you grow. Chocolate all the time just makes you fat.
At the time I proposed to Joy, my grandfather was about to celebrate his 55th wedding anniversary. By then, he had eaten a lot of nasty and nice and was not taken back by much that the world threw at him. He and my grandmother were children during World War One and married and raised my father during the Depression and World War Two, so life for them was much more complex than a box of chocolates. I don't think Grandpa liked chocolates much anyway. He preferred martinis.
Grandpa also had fondness for Joy and told me that the only thing I could do that was smarter than marrying her was being able to hold onto her. There would come a time, he advised, when there would just be the two of us. It would be prudent, he said, to truly know why I wanted to marry her and remember it. I was asked to explain that to him without using the word love.
That is a hard thing to do because it is such an arbitrary word. I can say I love my wife and I do, but I also love the Chicago Cubs and they never do anything but break my heart. Love is thrown around too easily because there are few other descriptive choices. I could not give my grandfather another term. I fumbled around and just stated that I could not describe how I felt. I just simply felt and knew it was the right feeling. He smiled and told me to go with that. It came from the heart and not the head.
The closest word I believe I could find for my grandfather now would be what the Scriptures call Charity. I know saying "I charity you" is not a Hallmark moment, but it implies giving until you can give no more and then continuing. That also comes from the heart. Joy has always been a giver and it is part of her character. Charity is something that for me has required maturity and maybe that is the most significant lesson I have learned these past thirty years.
Faith, hope and charity abound. They really do. I have watched them in my wife as she has changed from girlfriend to wife to mother and God willing a grandmother. When we started out, I never thought we would get to this age, but here we are in the fifties so quickly. It has been quite a ride, battling the lows of illnesses, working to make ends meet and the loss of the generations before us. And then there is the sweetest chocolate of all-the jubilation of raising four high spirited and compassionate children(like their mother)and sharing them with loving family and many devoted friends. At age 25, I remember stating that at age 55 I wanted to be rich. That is a goal I met, but in a better way than I could ever have imagined at the time. I am so grateful to God for the journey. He is the Master of charity.
I am not sure of much more now than at the beginning of the article, but the brain is spinning and that is a good thing at any age. What I think I know is that in a world so seemingly out of control, my wife has been the constant and that is everything. Prayerfully for you, it is the same and God bless you on your path. Just remember to keep the sheets clean.