Recently my husband (the farmer) and I celebrated our 36^th wedding anniversary. Thirty-six years—can that be right? Surely, we haven’t been married for 36 years!

It just reminds me how quickly time is racing by, and so in retrospect, I just thought I would reflect on things I would have missed if I had not married a farmer.

I would never have known the pleasure of watching an unplanted field go through the process of fruition: seeing the hard, dry ground cut deep with sharp plows and then the rich smell of the damp, dark soil wafting up as it was being turned over and over, making clods of dirt that would soon be drilled with kernels of corn; waiting and watching for that first sign of life, that first green leaf to pop through the dry, crusted ground; and later, as the plants grew to be over six feet tall, looking across the field which would have been mistaken for a green ocean, had each row of plants not been so meticulously straight; and finally, experiencing the smells and sounds of the harvest—crisp cool air, dry crunching leaves, and corn being picked, plucked or shelled.

I would never have known the delight of seeing a calf born in the green grass of spring, of seeing a baby calf nurse for the first time, or hearing him “maaawl” when he wakes from a nap and he can’t find his mama. I would never have sensed the fear of a mama protecting her baby from us when we were just trying to help them out. I would never have been able to sit on the back of a four-wheeler and look across the great span of our pasture and watch our herd of cattle happily graze on a lush paddock of sweet, green grasses.

I would never have known the joy that comes from being called “Mom”, not once but nine times. Each child brought a new enjoyment, but all were pleasantly the same, too. The pleasure of that tiny, warm bundle of softness placed in my arms made my heart melt. I never went anywhere that I didn’t wrap up each child so they looked like a little papoose. And it was a joy to watch them grow; we worked so hard to get them to talk, and without fail their first word was always, “da, da”. Then we taught them to walk, and they began to run on their own. They all went through the terrible twos, the terrifying threes, and the turbulent teens, but (thankfully) have now seemed to emerge as reasonably normal adults.

But most importantly, if I would never have married Ron, I would never have known the gratification of being who I have become. Through our shared experiences, both good and bad, we have both learned many things. The most important lesson is that we should honor God with our lives as individuals, with our marriage as a couple, and with our family as a whole. I have learned the principle that it’s greater to give than to receive, to rejoice with those who rejoice and to cry with those who are sad, and that things go better if we work towards the same goal…making me happy! J

Happy Anniversary, Honey! Here’s to 36 more years, which should be all downhill from here…right?!

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