My wife called me from the car on her way to work the day after Income tax.
“Happy anniversary,” she said with a chuckle.
Oops. I had completely forgotten our anniversary. The thing that saved me was so did she.
We made our wedding date the day after Income tax many years ago when I had a business printing out tax returns for accounting and tax services at a computer center. With last-minute tax preparations, the day after income tax was the first day I could schedule for anything.
Luckily, April 16 was a Saturday and my bride-to-be made all the preparations. She ordered the cake, invited relatives and friends and even picked out my suit. When I got up Saturday morning all I had to do was to get dressed.
That was a small bump in the road we have traveled together for 32 years.
But life happens and occasionally, normally important things get temporarily lost behind the smoke screen of the immediate problems that we must deal with.
In the previous weeks, our life has been bumpy. My middle-thirties daughter suffers from an insidious, incurable disease that has been acting up pretty severely recently. She has a normal job, but has been sick so often recently, she went on Family Medical Leave (FMLA), a great federal program that allows her time off to go to the doctor and to the hospital to have her disease treated without getting her fired.
On top of all the visits to local doctors, the Emergency Room and going through an endless array of drugs to try to make her disease manageable she has finally been referred to a surgical facility. There is no other choice.
The best hospital for the job is 90 miles away and there are more than several visits before the surgery.
While my wife drives her down and back, I take care of our ‘almost’ seven-year-old grandson and relieve her of that stress. We generally wind up together for dinner, and at least we can spend some pleasant time together.
On another note, as the IRS deadline approached, our son, who made more than a fair amount selling items on Amazon last year, was a nearly nightly visitor to ask for the help of my accountant wife. He also stayed many times for dinner as well.
We love having our kids visit, although under these circumstances, it made for a rather hectic lifestyle. So, April 15 came and went, and it didn’t even occur to me that the following day was our wedding anniversary day.
I am grateful that my wife has a sense of humor and I rewarded her with an anniversary card and flowers, and we rewarded ourselves by going out to dinner (alone) at a nice restaurant.
These are some examples of riding the bumps in the road. We have no say in how life goes. We can only try to react to circumstances thrust upon us. And we have lived and been married long enough to ride the little bumps without breaking pace. We have learned that life has enough of the big bumps.
All in all, life happens and includes lots of bumps.
Live a vital life.
