Jim and Shirley Taylor are my husband’s parents. they were married 50 years ago yesterday.

as if that isn’t a testimony unto itself, the stories told at the party we held to honor this amazing couple and their half century of life together makes me love them even more. and at the same time, it makes me sorry that so many marry today with no idea how to stick to what they stuck to.

their secret? as most who have spent 2/3 of their lives loving each other will tell you, they don’t specially have a secret. they just never thought of anything other than to take what comes and to decide to love each other.

profound in its simplicity. seems to me that folks today tend to complicate things much more than necessary.

fifty years ago mom and dad got married in a simple ceremony in a simple church, and like so many of that time, they got busy starting the family. three months later, mom was pregnant with their first child.

mom will remind you at this point how dad nearly died on her twice in the first year, first from St. Louis encephalitis and then from acute appendicitis. picture it: a pregnant newlywed twice faces whether she will be able to keep this new husband of hers.

but after two brushes with death, keep him she did, and on their first anniversary, their oldest son Russ was born. their second son, my husband Ricky, surprised them considerably when he arrived 10 minutes later. at that point, mom took a little “break” to relax and wash about 7000 diapers. daughter Tammy came along 13 whole months after the twins.

with three kids under the age of two, dad got a job coaching at a school in a new town. at this point, he got himself and mom known in this small Mississippi town by telling folks they had three children and had been married two years. wiseacre.

i tell you, women today will call it quits for significantly less trouble from their men. but not mom. she’s no quitter.

and so here they are 50 wedding anniversaries later, septuagenarians completing each other sentences, taking care of each other’s health, and quietly modeling a life of love and respect to their kids and grandkids for half a hundred years.

my husband and i love that we have their example to follow, as well as that of my parents, who, as it happens, were married on the same day as Jim and Shirley, one year earlier. we plan to honor this legacy of love with our own 50th anniversary when we are a mere 95 and 97 years old. (we are going to have to take better care of ourselves for that!)

in the meantime, we have many photos to enjoy. my 15 year old daughter Ellen created a slide show of a few of the albums-full of photos Jim and Shirley have collected over the years. we enjoyed it at their golden anniversary party and while there is some loss of quality when you put it on line, we offer it to you now to share and smile and remember.

thank you, Jim and Shirley Taylor. for all you have been and continue to be to your family and friends, you are a blessing.

CLICK on the image below to view the slide show.

Enclosure