Yes, we've been married 60 years

By Georgie Bright Kunkel

As early as two years ago we began planning our 60th wedding anniversary.

"Believe me," we said to each other, "if we have to attend in wheel chairs, we are going to celebrate."

Our poster sized wedding picture that we displayed at our 50th party had been hanging on the wall awaiting this big event. A friend once asked me how I could walk past that picture of two smiling young newlyweds and then go look in the mirror at our wrinkled selves.

I retorted, "No matter how young we looked then, we now look into the mirror and see two people young in spirit."

Spirit is what we have plenty of. I wrote a love song for Norman on our golden wedding anniversary and hoped my voice would hold up well enough to sing it once again. Can you imagine this oldie looking into her husband's eyes and singing these words?

You looked at me

I won't forget the way you looked at me

I won't forget the way your eyes met mine,

And the excitement that we shared.

Sound romantic? Well, it was romantic the night we met at the Trianon Ballroom in Seattle during WWII. Since our children are still close and many of our old friends are still around we decided to celebrate once more. But on our 59th wedding anniversary, just a year ago, Norman suffered a brain hemorrhage. Our hopes of reaching our 60th began to dim.

But never underestimate a survivor who rescued the wounded by driving his ambulance through shellfire to field hospitals and who sorted the living from the dead at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. He also survived sailing to Italy after the war through mine infested waters. His bo's'n (boatswain) buddy ribbed him about marrying a school teacher but we ignored him and tied the knot anyway in April of 1946.

That was the year the first electric blanket was invented. Norman was always willing to try anything new while I was the one who was sure we would catch on fire under that electric contraption. However, with our passionate feelings we didn't need an electric blanket to warm us. I was so excited about being married that I told Norman that I wanted 11 children like my mother had. We settled for four.

Now here we were in April 2006 surrounded by three grown children who shared their stories of how we had influenced them to take civic responsibility, plan and organize, plant a garden and cook up a storm. In our thoughts was the memory of our oldest son who died in that fateful year, 2001. But these sad thoughts of his absence were soon turned to joy when other family members and friends poured out their stories - of Norman's volunteering and political activism, Georgie's writing publicity releases for candidates and paving a feminist path for younger women, Norman's taking young visiting relatives around Seattle, and teenaged neighbors thanking Norman for teaching them how to plant potatoes. And let us not forget one grandchild remembering her grandfather's telling the mouse story over and over with a different slant each time.

Yes, we celebrated our 60 years of marriage even if Norman needed his wheel chair to attend. That didn't dampen our young spirits as we listened to swing music reminiscent of days gone by and received hugs from young and old.

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer and speaker and can be reached at gnkunkel@comcast.net Her second book written with Norman C. Kunkel is WWII Liberator's Life: AFS Ambulance Driver Chooses Peace copyrighted this year.