ANNIVERSARIES

     Anniversaries are the days that mark one's life. They are the highlights, good or bad, that speak to someone, or several or many others and they are highly personal, even if shared.
     Do we choose these important days or are they thrust upon us? I believe it is both. As we look back upon life we remember days that meant something though we might not have realized it at the time. Perhaps it unknowingly led us down one choice rather than another, but those anniversaries are hard to pin down.
     The anniversaries of marriage, birth, highlights of a life - those we can remember - or face unpleasant moments if we forget them!! These dates are really great to use when trying to induce guilt in another in order to achieve some goal or another. For example, a guy should remember when he got married, but will he also remember the date of engagement? Will he remember the anniversary of the first date? The first time the two met? It is easy to keep pressing until the desired goal is reached - and then the laughter.
    But there are other anniversaries that are not so pleasant. 55 years later I can remember exactly what I was doing when I heard the news about JFK - and I thought the woman was nuts! This simply does not happen. Who would want to shoot my hero? Today, there is not the same shock nor the same respect and to be honest, not the same expectations or behavior from our present politicians. Especially you know who!
     Even the little ones from 9/11 can remember when they heard about buildings falling down, saw the different behavior of the adults in their lives, were banned from TV for a while, and for many, they can never forget the permanent hole left in their lives.
     I would bet that most people can remember exactly what they were doing when they heard the unbearable and the unbelievable - Trump was elected. The hows and the whys, the backwards electoral system, all did not matter for the damage was down. This is a date that people of the future can look back upon and  point to it as the first real indication and clarification that the United States was in freefall.
     Or, they can point to it as an aberration of the moment, a dangerous error in a country that had been moving forward, a victory of the benighted, but a victory that was cancelled out two years later. We hope!
     But what about anniversaries that tell of the souls of people, cause others to wonder if we indeed have advanced at all. Many of us can remember the awful Anita Hill hearings, the disgusting lack of manners of the Committee, the nastiness, the professed disbelief when they all knew the truth. Close to forty years ago and here we are at the same point, the difference being only the age at the moment of the offense and the name of the accused. But the expressed doubt. The practicing of Kavanaugh as to how to answer. The doubting Thomas questions by the committee as they prepare, the assumption by men as to how one should react when violated or when faced with attempted rape. It is nauseating to the extreme. I hope and pray that the hearings this time find the better side of Republicans and hope they remember that they also have daughters and granddaughters, wives and sisters and how would they feel were it that relative of theirs in the hot seat?
      I am hoping that these hearings will be the anniversary of good things, the time when the Senate turned itself around, when Republicans who are supposedly on the fence are pricked by the sharp edges, deep into their souls and know what they must do, never mind the politics of it all. Collins, Murkowski, Flake, Manchin, Heidtkamp, and the others who face a challenging election - vote your conscience and not your seat!
     In the meanwhile, even as we wait with bated breath for the hearings, Gerry and I will be celebrating our 51st anniversary and for the record, he remembers all the other anniversaries as well. So really, we are celebrating 56 years of knowing each other -me from 14 and Gerry from 16. The question remains though did we meet first in school in the yard, or did we meet or get introduced at a Friday night gathering? Does it make a difference in the light of the rest of our lives? No, but it makes a cute reason to argue and tease! And then to go on and remember all the rest of the highlights of our lives together, the good and the bad, the joyful and the sorrowful.
     51 years of marriage. Good achievement, but let me remind all of you out there - it takes a whole lot of growing up, of giving in or demanding when necessary. It takes love and affection. It takes liking, a very different emotion than love. And it takes tolerance. Of course, I had to be more tolerant (LOL) but such is life. It is a partnership that is rarely 50/50 for that is the behavior of an automaton. Most of the time it varies according to the issue but it is all worth it.
     So Happy Anniversary tomorrow to my partner in life, to my husband, to the love in and of my life. G-d willing we will have more good years to share together. To laugh with our kids and grandkids and maybe great grandkids???????
     Let us all pray for good anniversaries, ones that are meaningful and teach us that there is hope for better things to come.