20.

"I Said My Granddad's Still In Love with My Grandma
I Said My Dad Still Thinks My Moms the Sweetest Thing He Ever Saw
You see I Come From A Long Line of Love 
When the Times Get Hard, We Don't Give Up
Forever Is In My Heart and In my Blood
You See I Come From A Long Line of Love" 


I love this song--Paul Overstreet penned and recorded this tune.


You see this morning, I was thinking about love because merely  20 years ago I was a bride.


Recently, a special aunt and uncle quietly celebrated 50 years together with their family.


This fall my parents will mark 45 years together.


Both of my grandparents surpassed 50 years before my grandfathers passed away.


Of course, love is fleeting too...


In my dining room an old upright piano sits silently this morning, but long, long ago before the marks and wear of the years, it was a new present to a bride.  She would later die in childbirth, but my great-grandfather would bring it farther West with him when he left.  Later he married my great-grandmother who homesteaded next to him on the South Dakota prairie.  Eventually, the piano came to rest in the family home for 80 years.  


With love in the air on our wedding day, we paused beneath the cottonwoods near the river and listened as friends sang Dolly's song...


"Love is like a butterfly
As soft and gentle as a sigh
The multicolored moods of love are like it's satin wings
Love makes your heart feel strange inside
It flutters like soft wings in flight
Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing"


Today, I appreciate that rare and gentle love that still flutters strong in my heart for my husband...the man who has become my partner in life.  Through the years that love has aged like fine wine-- rich with complexity and depth that only maturity can bring.