Does a Wedding Anniversary stop being a anniversary when one partner is gone?

A few days before the wedding my mother, sister and their friends gave Donie a Bridal Shower.  The only picture I have of that.That’s probably exactly forty years ago, today.  A short forty years. It’s the last three years that have been long.

Thanks to the fire ten years ago, this is the only picture surviving of the wedding.  Under the pine trees at my parents house.  Reverend Al from Hingham.  June 21st, 1974.

Our second apartment in Quincy.  A determined arsonist tried three times in one night to burn it down, third time we got the hint.  Left for good that night, I moved everything we owned the next day.  For us, the fastest move on record.

Years of being poor, years of working far to many hours a week, years passing with family weddings, births, deaths and vacations.

The old house, fire may have improved it.   Donie’s stroke that we coped with, and went on together for another 19 years.  

On Saturday, I think I’ll go away and have dinner by myself.  With my dear wife.