ANOTHER YEAR WITH MY TRUE LOVE

I close my eyes and see your face
Though I am far away.
I sit at my computer screen
Looking for the words to say
How much your love has meant to me
For, lo, these many years.
I’ll hold my lonely pillow,
And moisten it with tears.

I’m fifteen hundred miles away
A million, so it seems.
But I close my eyes and see your face.
You’re with me in my dreams.

Just twenty-nine short years ago,
We stood and pledged a vow:
To love each other all our lives.
Well, that was then. And now,
Our bond of love is stronger.
It grows more every day.
And so I know I’m in your heart
Though I am far away.

I’m fifteen hundred miles away
A million, so it seems.
But I close my eyes and see your face.
You’re with me in my dreams.

In the course of the past twenty-nine years, there have been a few times that She Who Must Be Obeyed and I have been obligated to spend our Wedding Anniversary apart. This is one of those times.

While my love tends the home fires, I am away conducting business on behalf of the Great Corporate Salt Mine. We have an arrangement, the Salt Mine and I. I conduct business on their behalf, doing their bidding, and they arrange for a Block of Simoleons to appear in my bank account twice a month. It is a healthy arrangement, one that has served us well for almost thirty of the past thirty-two years.

The Yoke of Corporate Servitude does not chafe much, owing to the thick callus I have built upon my soul. But today it doth chafe, for it causeth me to be away from my Sweet Lady on our special day.

I rationalize this, as I must.

For the Wedding Anniversary, though it be an important milestone, one worthy of Remembrance and Celebration, is but one day out of three hundred sixty five - and three hundred sixty six in Leap Years.

My love shows me that she loves me every single one of those days, in so many ways. Not least of which is by Putting Up With My Bullshit.

She has given me two wonderful daughters, daughters who have inherited their mother’s common sense and clear vision...and good looks, to boot.

She has allowed me to drag her the length and breadth of the country, living in seven houses in four states, several of which states being filled with people who have trouble understanding a plain-speaking Texan. But all this, she has borne with grace.

She can bring home the (turkey) bacon, and fry it up in a pan.

She laughs at my stupid jokes.

She holds me in her arms and makes me feel young again, no matter what tribulations the day throws at me.

I am fifteen hundred miles away on this, our Anniversary Day...but she is not distant. She is with me, in my heart, always.

Happy Anniversary, my love.