An Anyway Anniversary

July 1, 2000, Sparks, NV

Ken and I should be celebrating our 14th anniversary today. We'd likely go to Stephani's Oak Street Grill for an Early Bird Special...maybe the wild salmon, which we both favored. He'd mix a pair of his favorite brandy Manhattans and we'd toast. He'd survey our front yard gardens, smile approvingly, and announce, "I just love it here." He did. And then we'd settle down to a riotous evening of watching reruns of NCIS...or, if we were lucky, Gunsmoke.

Though Ken died just weeks short of our 9th anniversary, I still commemorate these days that should have been. And why not? You don't stop remembering your mom's birthday (tomorrow, July 2, as a matter of fact), just because she died decades ago. You don't stop remembering other important dates of events just because they're history. What is history? The whole series of past events connected with someone or something. And that someone, Ken, and something, our relationship, will always be connected to me.

In Requiem for a Nun William Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead ... actually, it's not even past." So if I want to celebrate an anniversary today, I've got good reason. A marriage to me is never over, the way I see it, whether it's supposedly terminated by divorce or death. The relationship lives on, at least in memories. Those memories rush back on what I call Anyway Anniversaries.

So, Ken Wilson, Happy Anyway Anniversary!