Golden Wedding

My parents celebrated their golden wedding this weekend. Both are now in their 80s, with eyesight problems, angina, cancer, osteoporosis, and many other ailments I can’t give a name to. My Dad needs two sticks or a walker, and someone to hold his arm. But I am very proud of them because they only tell me about these things if I ask. Normally, they talk about day to day life – home improvements, friends, family, etc.

My parents are the most wonderful example I could ever have had, of how to live as a Christian and how to have a perfect marriage. I can only remember them having three arguments, and they were relatively trivial. My Mum has always submitted to her husband as to the Lord, my Dad has always given his life for his wife, as Christ does for the church.

So they are still madly in love. I think their bedroom activities are somewhat curtailed by the limitations of age and ill health, but I think they are still at it.

My parents were missionaries in South America and then Europe until they retired. In both places, they worked with indigenous churches. In Europe, they were invited by the local church. My Dad has always been a teacher rather than an evangelist. They have few converts, including me and my siblings. But they have a legacy of established believers, rooted in the Scriptures and living the Godly life.

For the celebration, they hired a hall in a Christian conference centre. This meant we had a three course meal and waiter service, nicely laid out tables with place names, music, etc etc. The guests were my parent’s children, their spouses, and all the grandchildren. Despite this, it was very quiet to start with, but the conversations soon got going, and we all had a great time. Some tears from my youngest boy, who trying to be on his best behaviour spilled his dinner down his front, and more tears from our baby who insisted it was "carry me" time. Happiness in the beginnings of a prodigal's return for one of my nephews. Avoided telling the aged missionaries that their grandchild is sharing a flat with a girlfriend. And a sister in law refrained from slapping and biting her husband. In fact they even looked in love.

I managed to get the dress code right in a suit, despite my wife telling me I would be overdressed. But I know my own parents! She also complained I spent far to much on their golden wedding gift. Is it possible to spend too much on a golden wedding gift?

The music was a CD of old hymns – exactly the right thing for my parents, whose day it was, but probably not what my sister-in-law would have enjoyed at all. She would also have found the grace, the closing prayer, and the speeches given by my brother and my Dad, all far to religious. But well done to her, she smiled through it all.

The key point for me though, was the final good bye hug to my Dad. I felt it might very well be just that – final. In a way I hope it was, because he is so weak he can’t have much quality of life now that he cannot fulfil his hobby of reading the scriptures. But mostly I felt really sad - a sense of loss even though he is still here. It would be convenient for himto go, and save me having to explain to him how far my theology has moved from what he taught me. But he taught me to love God above everything else, and that is the greatest gift, the greatest example that anyone could give. So I will be sad when he goes. Only now am I begining to realise how much I really do love him.