I've never been so happy. . .

I've already written about moving to Portland, Oregon, with Gwen and our young family during the third year of our marriage.  It was an an exciting, tumultuous and happy time for us.  Immediately after our wedding we lived in Marquette while I took a class that was needed in order for me to attend the NDEA Institute at the UM in the fall.. Then, we spent a year in Ann Arbor where Gwen was employed at the Veterans' Hospital  and I attended graduate school.  A year and a week after our wedding our son, John, Jr., was born.  In the late summer of that year we moved to Reedsville, Wisconsin, where I was their first guidance counselor.  At the end our our year there our daughter, Jeanne, was born and we prepared to move to Portland.

Gwen stayed with her parents in Gaastra while I drove to Portland, found us a place to stay, and began attending classes.  This was the first time we had been apart for an extended period, and, in spite of frequent telephone calls, we were anxious to be reunited as a family.  A week after I had arrived in Portland I drove to the airport to meet Gwen and the kids.  This was an era when air travel was still a pretty big deal, so it was quite an adventure for Gwen to take that flight alone with two children, one a month-old infant and the other just beginning to walk.  We were so happy to see each other that I never took the time to appreciate what an effort it must have been for Gwen to have made that trip.  Many years later, when walking became difficult for Gwen, on more than one occasion I wheeled her through airport terminals in a wheel chair.  In a sense, we had come full circle, and I was merely repeating what she had done with two children, one in a stroller, so long ago.  I see now what I didn't see then--sacrifices made in the present will echo through the history of a relationship and become opportunities to demonstrate our love for each other in ways we had never expected.

When Gwen and I greeted each other as she left the airplane the two children she had in tow were temporarily forgotten as we kissed and then held each other tight.  "I have never been so happy to see someone in my whole life," she whispered in my ear.  The "I love you." that I whispered back hardly seemed sufficient to express what was in my heart.  It was another of those sacred moments that happen in all loving relationships when time does stand still and nothing else in the world matters; two people are one.

Later that evening, Dear, after we had settled into our apartment, you met Bub and Lou Ann, Mario and Joan, Paul and Jane, and Dick and Peggy; all classmates of mine and their spouses.  We all lived in the same apartment complex.

 After that, when the kids were fed and off to sleep, we finally had a chance to be alone with each other.  The sweet love we shared that evening was a testament to the miracle of our love; I've never forgotten it.  Time stood still twice for us on that day.