Let’s Party!

My husband, Johnny, and I celebrated our seventieth wedding anniversary during the early throes of COVID-19. However, most of the world was in lockdown.

Life as we knew it was at a standstill.

No cards of congratulations were expected because very few people we knew went close to a post office. Who knew where the uninvited virus lurked? However, to our surprise, we heard a knock at our door. There stood years-long friends, Virginia and Steve, with a card and a cake that they handed through the door with socially distanced outstretched arms and loving words. Then off they drove with waves.

A couple of hours later, another knock at our door and two more friends stood there: our masked-friend Fred with another cake as his dear Gladys waved cheerfully from a distance at their car. Again a few dear words were exchanged, and then they were on their way. We like cake, but how could we use all this cake and no one with whom to party? After pondering on those two scrumptious cakes, I said to Johnny, “Let’s party!” I emailed some of our closest neighbors (we live in an Adventist retirement community of apartments), inviting them to come and get some of our gifted anniversary cake. All accepted the invitation, and we happily chatted through the door.

Dear words from these brothers and sisters encouraged us when we might have felt a bit blue otherwise. After all, seventy years of marriage is quite a blessing. It isn’t always a sermon we humans need, but we all do need loving words and actions. Our anniversary wasn’t lonely at all. We don’t feel that we missed out on anything because the most wonderful celebration in earth’s history is coming up when Jesus comes to take His redeemed to heaven.

Betty Kossick