7 years.
60 years.
The first number is the length, in years, of the average marriage in the United States.
The second number is the years, to the day, that my grandparents have been married.
What an astonishing difference in the two numbers!
My entire life, I’ve heard that marriage is a failing institution. That marriage no longer means what it used to.
My hope for finding my husband and living a long, happy, married life has been beat into the ground year after year as I watched family members and friends’ parents divorce.
I watched celebrities get married and/or divorced for stupid reasons.
To most, marriage had become a joke.
My grandparents (both sets, and, of course, my own parents—but this post isn’t about them hah) have been my small candle of light flickering in the darkness of hopelessness in marriage.
Today, they have been married for 60 years.
60 years!
Unheard of in a culture where, according to Census.gov, less than 40% of married couples stay with each other long enough to see their twentieth wedding anniversary.
And the statistics from there forward are just straight depressing…
Less than 5% stay married for 50 years.
Less than 3% stick it out for 60 years.
In fact, the number for the marriages that last 60 years is so small that they don’t have an accurate percentage for it. It says “3% +/-“ and when you look at the key at the end of the report, it says that 3% is what they estimate.
The numbers are so low that they cannot express it in percentage form and that it could be as low as less than 1%…
My grandparents are literally too rare to be included in a statistic. (But I could have told you that!)
And I couldn’t be more proud to have them as an example for the marriage I hope to have one day.
Not because they have a perfect marriage, because they don’t.
I’ve seen them bicker.
I’ve heard my petite grandpa threaten to beat my grandma with his cane—lovingly, I’m sure 😉
I’ve listened as grandma got frustrated with something my grandpa did (or didn’t do).
But, what sets them apart is they love each other well, they like each other and they are dedicated to work at their marriage.
Because of their hard work, they’ve been present to provide, not only an example of a successful marriage, but also a lifetime full of memories for me. (Which I could write an entire blog on and would make this one waaaaaaaaay too long!)
I honestly don’t know where this blog post is heading, I just felt compelled to express how much my grandparents mean to me and what an example they have been in shaping my attitudes about marriage in a generation of hopelessness.
According to my cousin’s calculations, their marriage has birthed six kids, 14 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.
During holidays and special occasions, more than 40 people (their children and spouses, grandchildren and spouses, and great-grand children) gather in the tiny old farm house that they’ve lived in for decades.
The floors creak, the cell phone reception is non-existent, the one bathroom is never open, there is no room to move and getting up to get more food or drink results in spilled drinks and everyone having to move to let that one person out, but it’s wonderful.
It's home.
We squeeze into the two main family rooms with card tables and chairs, TV trays, and food on laps, while the children run eagerly to the “back porch” to eat and play with the toys from my mom’s childhood.
Then we spend hours eating, laughing and talking.
We eat so long that hot meals turn cold.
We laugh so hard that tears of joy stream down our faces and we can’t breathe.
We talk so long that day quickly turns into night.
Card games result in broken chairs and broken windows.
The amount of love given and received in that house might be the reason it looks like the walls might burst at the seams.
And it’s home.
They make it home.
Over 60 years, the most beautiful family has been created and grown exponentially inside the walls of that rickety, beautiful house in the middle of the country.
In fact, it’s grown so fast and so much that we’ve found it hard to find a “good time” to take family pictures when there isn’t an upcoming wedding or arrival of a new great-grand child.
Again, I wish I had a profound point I could drive home, but I don’t.
I am just astonished by the love and commitment that my grandparents have for each other and how they have not disregarded the “till death do us part” aspect of their marriage vows.
Thank you, Grandma Dixie and Grandpa Clarence, for being an example of a beautiful, lasting marriage.
Thank you for setting my dreams and aspirations for marriage high in a world of low standards and apathetic attitudes.
Thank you for your commitment to each other and to the health and happiness of your too-big-for-the-house-family.
Thank you for the unconditional, unrelenting love that you’ve shown us all.
Thank you for being real and raw with each other, but vowing to solve the issues and not throw it all away.
Thank you.
I wish I could be at the giant celebration that is sure to happen tonight, when all the friends and family members gather to celebrate this beautiful anniversary. I wish I could hug on you both and cry as I see the way you still look at each other and exchange the most sweet, innocent kisses.
I can’t be there tonight, no matter how much I wish I could, but I will be there in spirit and love as I think about you two all day long and the lasting impact your marriage has had on my life.
I love you.
All these people simply because two people fell deeply in love and committed to stick together through thick and thin! 🙂
(We finally made time this year to do updated family pictures. We nearly doubled in numbers since the last one 10 years ago. hah)
