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Fifty years ago I promised her I’d love and cherish her through thick or thin, that someday we’d grow old together. When that day arrived, I would be there to hold her hand if she found it difficult to make it up or down those steps to our front door.

That day has arrived and I find the tables have turned. Ironically, I find myself riding comfortably in my wheelchair as she graciously maneuvers me along the walkway to the foot of those steps. I have long since found it necessary to hide the tears as I let her attend to this additional example of my faults. (I found tears in her eyes, too.).

We have experienced countless joys in the past years, but none so pronounced as the sight of each other each morning, just knowing we have one more day together. My only regret is that we spent so many of those years engaged in such trivial activities as “keeping up with the Joneses” or worrying about what our neighbors might think. We both know, now, that those things are of little importance. Our only aim is that true objective of our existence and that some time in the next 50 years we will share again in a marriage that will not end in tears or regrets. A helping hand will be there when we arrive at the bottom of those steps.